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JUN  i  7  1935. 


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2  0  A93- 

ft.' 


JUN  1  2  1930 
,      ^937 

S>Kp'l( 


Form  L-9-15m-7,'32 


SOCIAL  FORCES 

IN 

GERMAN  LITERATURE, 

A  Study  in  the  History  of  Civilisation. 


KUNO  FRANCKE,   Ph.  D., 

Professor  of  German  Literature,  in  Harvard 
University. 


[Second  Edition.] 


NEW  YORK  : 

HENRY  HOLT  &  CO. 

.897. 


:173 


Glimpses  of 
Modern  German  Culture 


Glimpses  of 
Modern  German  Culture 


KUNO   FRANCKE 
^Professor  at  Harvard  University 


NEW  YORK 

DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY 

1898 


3 


Copyright,  1898,  by 
DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY 


Zfye  £orfc  $aftimorc  (preee 

THE  KRIEDENWALD  COMPANY 
BALTIMORE,  MD.,  U.  S.  A. 


35GI 


TO  MY  WIFE 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


Page 

Introductory.    The  Conflicts  of  Modern 

Germany     9 

I.    The  Leibniz  Day  of  the  Berlin  Acad- 
emy of  Sciences       .        .        .        .16 

II.    The  Socialist  Situation       .        .        .28 

III.  Wildenbruch's   "King   Henry"   and 

Hauptmann's  "  Florian  Geyer  "  .     42 

IV.  Johanna  Ambrosius         .        .        .        .57 

V.     Karoline  von  Gunderode  and  Fried- 
rich  Creuzer 69 

VI.     Hauptmann's  "The  Sunken  Bell"    .    85 

VII.     Hermann  Grimm 98 

VIII.     Impressions  of  Industrial  and  Patri- 
archal Germany      .        .        .        .113 

IX.  Max  Halbe's  "Mother  Earth"  .  129 

X.  Sudermann's  "John  the  Baptist"     .  142 

XI.  Arnold  Bocklin 154 

XII.  Heinrich  Seidel 166 

XIII.  Peter  Rosegger 180 

XIV.  Bismarck  as  a  National  Type     .        .  195 


INTRODUCTORY. 

The  Conflicts  of  Modern  Germany. 

Germany  is  at  present  the  classic  land  of 
moral  contrasts.  Nowhere  is  the  conflict 
between  the  powers  temporal  and  spirit- 
ual, between  traditional  creeds  and  per- 
sonal convictions,  between  autocracy  and 
freedom  being  waged  with  greater  inten- 
sity or  deeper  rooted  bitterness.  Nowhere 
is  there  such  a  variety  of  parties  bent  on 
mutual  annihilation. 

The  strife  between  church  and  state 
which  in  the  seventies  flamed  up  with  such 
a  sinister  glare,  is  at  present  smouldering 
under  the  ashes.  But  it  would  be  a  mis- 
take to  think  that  the  passions  which  at 
that  time  seemed  to  set  the  whole  nation 
on  fire  had  spent  their  force.     As  long  as 


io  Glimpses  of 

there  is  on  the  one  hand  a  centralised  em- 
pire claiming  absolute  control  over  the  in- 
tellectual and  moral  training  of  all  its  sub- 
jects, on  the  other  an  infallible  papacy 
claiming  superhuman  authority  and  de- 
manding unconditional  submission  to  its 
divine  laws,  there  can  be  no  real  and  en- 
during public  peace,  there  can  be  at  best 
a  temporary  cessation  of  hostilities,  and  at 
any  moment  the  perennial  dispute  between 
king  and  pontiff  may  break  out  again. 

Even  less  veiled  than  this  war  between 
the  powers  temporal  and  spiritual  is  the 
conflict  between  monarchy  and  democracy. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  is  the  real 
point  at  issue  between  the  Socialist  labour 
party  and  the  imperial  Government.  On 
the  surface  it  is  a  question  of  labour  organi- 
sation, of  the  distribution  of  wealth,  of 
strikes  and  wages;  at  bottom  it  is  a  ques- 
tion of  life  and  death  between  the  divine 
right  of  kings  and  popular  autonomy.   Well 


Modern  German  Culture  1 1 

enough  do  the  upholders  of  the  monarchy 
know  that  the  Socialist  state  of  the  future 
is  a  harmless  Utopia,  a  humanitarian  dream 
which  would  vanish  into  air  at  the  first  real 
attempt  to  put  it  into  practice.  This  is 
not  what  they  fear.  What  they  do  fear 
and  what  they  resist  with  the  grim  ardour 
of  men  attacked  in  the  very  stronghold 
of  their  innermost  convictions  is  the  under- 
mining of  military  authority,  the  shattering 
of  the  belief  in  the  royalist  legend,  the 
spread  of  republican  ideas — the  real  dan- 
gers to  the  monarchy  which  the  Socialist 
propaganda  of  the  last  twenty-five  years 
has  conjured  up.  Hence  the  wholesale 
prosecution  of  Socialist  editors,  the  endless 
trials  for  lese  majesty,  the  organised  efforts 
to  suppress  free  thought  by  means  of  an 
approved  theology,  the  ever  repeated  at- 
tempts to  curtail  the  political  franchise, — 
measures  of  war  which,  of  course,  have 
no  other  effect  but  to  strengthen  and  ce- 


1 2  Glimpses  of 

ment  the  ranks  of  the  opposition  and  to 
inspire  them  with  a  determined  devotion 
to  a  cause  which  is  glorified  by  martyrdom. 
And  the  same  thorough-going,  one 
might  say  exalted,  fierceness  characterises 
the  third  great  struggle  that  disturbs  the 
public  peace  of  Germany:  the  struggle  be- 
tween industrial  bondage  and  industrial 
freedom.  Nowhere  are  the  lines  between 
employer  and  employed  more  sharply 
drawn  than  in  Germany,  nowhere  is  there 
more  of  class  feeling.  But  this  very  fact 
has  given  to  the  German  labour  movement 
a  compactness  and  solidarity  superior  to 
that  of  most  other  countries;  it  has  imbued 
it  with  a  firm  belief  in  the  final  victory  of 
right  that  has  something  of  a  religious  fer- 
vour; it  has  made  it  a  movement  of  an  emi- 
nently educational  character;  and  I  am  in- 
clined to  think  that  the  Socialist  working- 
men  of  Germany  stand  higher  than  the 
workingmen    of   most   other   countries   in 


Modern  German  Culture  1 3 

intellectual  drill,  in  political  discipline,  and 
in  respect  for  the  ideal  concerns  of  life. 

These  are  the  contradictions  of  public 
life  in  contemporary  Germany.  But  there 
are  contradictions  also  in  the  individual  life 
of  the  cultivated  German  of  to-day:  above 
all  the  contradiction  between  the  material- 
istic tendencies  of  our  own,  predominantly 
scientific  age  and  the  ideal  cravings  be- 
queathed to  us  by  a  past  excelling  in  liter- 
ary and  aesthetic  refinement.  In  no  single 
individual  has  this  contrast  received  a  more 
striking  embodiment  than  in  that  strangely 
paradoxical  poet-philosopher,  whose  rhap- 
sodic, half  inspired,  half  crazy  utterances 
have  had  such  a  dazzling,  though  stimulat- 
ing, influence  on  the  present  generation  of 
German  writers  and  artists:  I  mean,  of 
course,  in  Friedrich  Nietzsche.  Here  we 
see  on  the  one  hand  a  most  delicate  per- 
ception of  the  finest  operations  of  the  mind, 
a  penetrating  analysis  of  the  most  tender 
instincts  and  longings  of  the  human  soul, 


H  Glimpses  of 

a  revelling  in  artistic  enjoyment,  a  glorifi- 
cation of  the  most  sublimated  culture — 
and  on  the  other  hand,  a  savage  delight  in 
the  underlying  selfishness  and  brutality  of 
all  life,  a  ruthless  exaltation  of  might  over 
right,  a  diabolical  contempt  for  spiritual 
endeavour,  an  hysterical  apotheosis  of  the 
"blond  beast,"  of  the  "  Uebermensch," 
and  of  cavalier  morality.  No  wonder  that 
Nietzsche  himself  in  this  whirlpool  of  con- 
flicting emotions  should  have  lost  his  bal- 
ance, that  the  night  of  insanity  should  have 
closed  in  upon  him  and  extinguished  the 
lights  of  that  exultant  life  which  he  loved 
so  much. 

I  have  laid  emphasis  on  the  multitude  of 
moral  conflicts  that  beset  contemporary 
Germany,  not  from  any  desire  to  paint 
gloom,  but  on  the  contrary,  because  I 
think  that  from  the  very  friction  of  these 
opposing  tendencies  there  has  arisen  the 
new  life  in  art  and  literature  which  is  char- 
acterised by  such  names  as  Wildenbruch, 


Modern  German  Culture  1 5 

Sudermann,  Hauptmann,  Boecklin.  No- 
valis  has  defined  individual  genius  as.  a 
plurality  of  personalities  combined  in  one. 
Similarly,  one  might  say  that  the  German 
people  is  at  present  giving  signs  of  genius 
because  of  the  variety  of  opposing  ideals 
which  are  struggling  for  supremacy  in  the 
national  heart.  He  would  be  of  little  faith, 
indeed,  who  would  deplore  this  struggle  as 
a  sign  of  national  disintegration. 

The  following  sketches  (nine  of  which 
have  previously  appeared  in  The  Nation, 
four  in  The  Bookman,  one  in  The  At- 
lantic) are  a  slight  attempt  to  describe  some 
of  the  symptoms  of  the  eager  activity  indi- 
cated in  the  preceding  remarks.  Written 
partly  in  Berlin,  partly  in  ■  Cambridge, 
under  the  immediate  impression  of  the  mo- 
.  ment,  they  disclaim  explicitly  the  sober 
impartiality  of  second  thought;  although 
readers  familiar  with  my  "  Social  Forces  in 
German  Literature  "  will  find  here  the  same 
basis  of  fundamental  convictions. 


1 6  Glimpses  of 


L— THE  LEIBNIZ  DAY  OF  THE 

BERLIN  ACADEMY  OF 

SCIENCES 

July,   1895. 

It  is  eminently  fitting  that  the  Berlin  Acad- 
emy should  annually  celebrate  the  memory 
of  Leibniz — not  only  because  Leibniz  was 
the  virtual  founder  of  this,  the  foremost  of 
Germany's  learned  institutions,  but  chiefly 
because  he  was  the  first  great  representa- 
tive among  the  Germans  of  what  is  implied 
in  the  somewhat  unfortunate  term,  modern 
culture.  Leibniz  stands  midway  between 
Luther  and  Goethe.  He  first  reduced  to 
philosophic  reasoning  the  individualistic 
view  of  the  universe  which  had  been  at  the 
bottom  of  the  Reformation  movement,  and 
which  was  to  find  its  fullest  artistic  expres- 


Modern  German  Culture  1 7 

sion  in  the  classic  epoch  of  eighteenth-cen- 
tury literature.  At  a  time  when  the  Thirty 
Years'  War  and  its  disastrous  conse- 
quences had  crushed  all  national  hopes, 
his  philosophy  formed  a  rallying-point  for 
higher-striving  minds,  and  opened  up  the 
prospect  of  an  ultimate,  though  distant, 
resurrection  of  the  German  people. 

If  Descartes,  Locke,  and  even  Spinoza 
look  at  the  world  as  a  huge  mechanism  in 
which  there  is  little  room  left  for  sponta- 
neous activity  and  self-assertion,  Leibniz 
considers  it  as  an  aggregate  of  an  infi- 
nite multitude  of  independent  intellectual 
forces.  There  is  mind  in  everything.  The 
body  is  nothing  but  mind  contracted  into 
form :  "  Omne  corpus  est  mens  momenta- 
nea."  Between  plant,  animal,  and  man 
there  is  a  difference  of  degree  only,  not  of 
quality.  The  whole  world  is  engaged  in 
a  process  of  continual  change,  transition, 
perfection.     There  is  an  unbroken  line  of 


1 8  Glimpses  of 

development  from  the  sleeping  life  of  a 
seed-corn  to  the  free  consciousness  of  a 
full-grown  man;  from  the  gloomy  egotism 
of  the  savage  to  the  broad,  enlightened 
charity  of  the  sage.  God  is  the  supreme 
wisdom  and  the  supreme  love.  From  an 
infinite  number  of  possible  worlds  he  has 
chosen  the  actual  world  as  the  best.  He 
has  created  it,  and  is  therefore  outside  of 
it :  but  he  has  constituted  it  in  such  a  man- 
ner that  it  needs  no  guidance  except 
through  its  own  intrinsic  laws.  He  has 
so  arranged  it  that  all  individual  forces 
work  together  harmoniously  and  for  a 
common  end.  Evil  itself  is  only  a  less  per- 
fect good.  An  admiring  insight  into  this 
harmony  of  the  universe  is  man's  highest 
happiness  and  virtue.  It  is  happiness,  be- 
cause it  gives  us  trust  in  the  reasonableness 
of  things  and  makes  us  accept  all  that  may 
befall  us,  pain  no  less  than  pleasure,  as  the 
dispensation  of  a  divine  providence.     It  is 


Modern  German  Culture  19 

virtue,  because  it  helps  us  to  overcome  all 
littleness,  puts  before  us  the  ideal  of  a  com- 
plete existence,  and  teaches  us  through 
self-perfection  to  take  part  in  the  better- 
ment of  the  race. 

Strange  and  enigmatic  as  this  curious 
mixture  of  scientific  ideas  and  mythologi- 
cal images  must  appear  to  an  age  which 
has  accustomed  itself  to  approach  all  ques- 
tions without  the  bias  of  the  supernatural, 
it  is  none  the  less  clear  that  the  leading 
thought  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the  idea 
of  organic  evolution,  is  here  at  least  fore- 
shadowed. And  however  well  deserved 
the  fame  of  Leibniz  the  antiquarian,  the 
linguist,  the  mathematician,  the  exact  in- 
vestigator, may  be,  his  true  significance 
lies  in  this  divinatory  conception  of  the 
world  as  a  living  whole. 

Both  the  environment  and  the  spirit  of 
the  assemblage  which,  the  day  before  yes- 
terday, gathered  in  the  modest  hall  of  the 


20  Glimpses  of 

Berlin  Academy  of  Sciences  to  do  homage 
to  this  great  man,  were  thoroughly  char- 
acteristic of  the  prevailing  tendencies — 
patent  or  hidden —  in  modern  German  life. 
Perhaps  the  most  conspicuous  thing  about 
it  was  the  complete  absence  of  anything 
even  approaching  public  interest  in  the 
matter.  Suppose  there  were  some  stated 
day  on  which  the  memory  of  Locke  or 
Hume  was  celebrated  at  Harvard  Univer- 
sity— a  day  on  which  men  like  William 
James,  John  Fiske,  Brinton,  Gildersleeve, 
Child  (to  take  at  random  a  few  names  sug- 
gested by  the  thought  of  a  possible  Ameri- 
can Academy)  could  be  heard  or  seen — a 
day,  moreover,  which  would  lend  itself 
naturally  to  the  most  delightful  afternoon 
teas  and  receptions — a  day  on  which  the 
latest  spring  gown  could  be  worn  to  the 
best  advantage;  then  all  the  elements  nec- 
essary for  a  most  emphatically  social  time 
in   the  electric  cars  between  Boston   and 


Modern  German  Culture  2 1 

Cambridge  would  be  given.  The  Berlin 
public  evidently  are  so  saturated  with  intel- 
ligence and  culture  that  they  are  above  the 
vulgar  desire  to  see  and  hear  distinguished 
men.  And  thus  it  happened  that  the  Leib- 
niz day  of  the  Royal  Academy,  an  occasion 
in  which  men  of  world-wide  fame,  like 
Mommsen,  Curtius,  Virchow,  Harnack,  Du 
Bois-Reymond,  were  sure  to  participate, 
attracted,  apart  from  the  friends  and  guests 
of  the  Academicians  themselves,  not  more 
than  a  little  group  of  students  and  foreign 
visitors — all  told,  an  audience  of  some 
three  hundred  people;  while  in  the  daily 
press  it  was  hardly  mentioned,  either  be- 
fore or  after. 

Another  characteristic  feature  of  the 
meeting — and  a  most  agreeable  one — was 
its  absolute  simplicity  and  freedom  from 
formality.  The  only  official  representative 
of  the  Government  present  was  Dr.  Bosse, 
the  Minister  of  Public  Instruction,  and  he 


22  Glimpses  of 

was  a  few  minutes  late.  That  Mommsen, 
the  presiding  officer,  did  not  wait  for  him 
in  opening  the  proceedings,  seemed  to  me 
an  accident  of  almost  symbolical  signifi- 
cance. Bureaucracy  and  militarism  have 
not  yet  penetrated  into  the  sanctuary  of 
science,  thank  God !  Not  a  single  uniform 
was  to  be  seen  in  the  audience;  not  a  single 
lady  whom  one  would  have  felt  tempted  to 
address  with  "  Gnadige  Frau."  The  pre- 
dominant types  were  earnest,  unpreten- 
tious, and  determined-looking  men,  and 
simple  and  benevolent-looking  housewives. 
Even  boys  and  girls  were  there,  sitting 
quietly  and  modestly  with  their  parents. 
It  was  altogether  a  family  affair  of  Berlin's 
best  men. 

To  me  the  most  interesting  figure  was 
Mommsen.  He  sat  by  the  side  of  Curtius, 
and  the  two  together  appeared  an  almost 
perfect  embodiment  of  the  ideal  scholar. 
Curtius,  though  he  has  rallied  from  his  re- 


Modern  German  Culture 


cent  accident  with  wonderful  elasticity,  yet 
gives  the  impression  of  one  whose  thoughts 
do  not  dwell  any  longer  on  this  earth. 
The  far-away  look  of  his  eye  and  the  mel- 
ancholy smile  that  plays  around  his  lips — 
these  characteristic  expressions  of  his  es- 
sentially lyric  temper — have  been  accentu- 
ated by  the  approach  of  the  end,  and  sur- 
round him  more  than  ever  with  a  curious 
dreamy  charm.  Mommsen,  on  the  other 
hand,  seems  to  have  been  only  steeled  and 
invigorated  by  old  age.  His  voice  is  as 
keen  and  penetrating  as  ever,  his  eye  has 
still  the  same  inexorable,  sibylline  glance 
as  of  old;  and  the  sarcastic  lines  that  run 
from  nose  to  chin  are  perhaps  even  more 
marked  than  they  used  to  be.  But,  at  the 
same  time,  there  is  spread  over  his  face  a 
certain  softness  which  was  formerly  absent, 
and  the  nervousness  of  his  manner  has  en- 
tirely disappeared. 

The  exercises  of  the  day  consisted  in  an 


24  Glimpses  of 

opening  address  by  Mommsen,  in  the  intia- 
tion,  also  by  Mommsen,  of  some  newly 
elected  members,  among  them  Erich 
Schmidt  and  Adolf  Erman;  and  in  a  memo- 
rial address  on  Helmholtz  by  Du  Bois- 
Reymond.  While  the  latter  was  in  the 
main  biographical,  and  offered  little  that 
was  either  new  or  of  universal  interest, 
there  was  a  terseness,  a  poignancy,  a  free- 
dom in  all  that  Mommsen  said,  which  was 
simply  irresistible.  The  central  subject  of 
his  remarks  was  the  relation  of  the  special- 
ist to  the  whole  system  of  human  knowl- 
edge. "  Are  we  truly  assembled  here  in 
the  spirit  of  Leibniz?  "  he  asked.  "  Can 
we  truly  call  ourselves  his  disciples?  "  The 
answer  to  this  question  seems  at  first  sight 
to  be  a  negative  one.  To  Leibniz  the  in- 
dividual fact  had  no  significance  except  as 
a  link  in  the  whole  of  a  well-rounded  and 
complete  view  of  the  world;  and  he  him- 
self mastered  all  the  details  of  a  systematic 


Modern  German  Culture  25 

view  of  the  world  which  was  the  fruit  of 
his  own  thought  and  his  own  researches  in 
nearly  every  domain  of  science.  To  us  the 
isolated  fact  is  only  too  often  the  final  goal 
of  investigation;  and  as  for  mastering  the 
system  of  knowledge  as  a  whole,  none  of 
us  is  a  master,  we  are  all  journeymen.  "  Un- 
ser  Werk  lobt  keinen  Meister;  nicht  wir 
beherrschen  die  Wissenschaft,  die  Wissen- 
schaft  beherrscht  uns."  If,  then,  through 
specialisation  of  work  we  have  lost  the  uni- 
versal culture  and  true  humanity  which  for 
Leibniz  was  still  attainable,  it  would  yet  be 
a  grave  mistake  to  condemn  on  that  ac- 
count the  tendency  of  specialisation.  On 
the  contrary,  it  is  the  specialist — i.  e.,  the 
specialist  who  looks  beyond  the  isolated 
fact — who  is  to  lead  us  back  to  culture  and 
humanity.  Only  from  him  can  we  expect 
the  elucidation  of  the  organic  unity  of  all 
knowledge;  only  he  can  penetrate  to  the 
one  source  of  all  life.     It  is,  therefore,  he, 


26  Glimpses  of 

and  not  the  compiler,  who  truly  represents 
the  conception  of  science  as  an  organic 
whole;  and  of  him  more  truly  than  of  any 
one  else  can  it  be  said  that  he  walks  in  the 
footsteps  of  Leibniz. 

While  this  was  the  general  trend  of 
Mommsen's  discourse,  it  was  perfectly  ap- 
parent that  through  it  all  there  ran  an  un- 
dercurrent of  protest  against  recent  politi- 
cal developments,  against  the  autocratic 
rule  of  the  present  Emperor  and  the  con- 
stantly growing  overbearance  of  Prussian 
officialdom.  It  was  undoubtedly  intended 
for  the  ears  of  the  Minister  of  Public  In- 
struction, who,  by  the  way,  sat  directly  op- 
posite him,  when  Mommsen  remarked  that 
the  time  seemed  forever  gone  when  a  dis- 
tinguished scholar  like  Wilhelm  von  Hum- 
boldt could  at  the  same  time  be  a  Prus- 
sian Minister  of  State.  It  was  an  unmistak- 
able reproof  of  the  Emperor's  extraordi- 
nary treatment  of  the  venerable  Von  Sybel 


Modern  German  Culture 


when  Mommsen  spoke  of  the  relation  of 
Frederick  the  Great — "  Friedrichs  des  Ein- 
zigen" — to  the  members  of  the  Acdemy 
as  something  which  would  be  simply  im- 
possible at  present.  It  was  a  direct  con- 
demnation of  contemporary  Byzantinism 
and  a  plea  for  a  freer  and  nobler  view  of  life 
than  that  held  by  modern  worshipers  of 
might,  when  in  the  words  of  welcome  ad- 
dressed to  Erich  Schmidt,  he  called  it  the 
task  of  the  historian  of  German  literature 
"  to  lead  the  age  of  William  back  to  the 
age  of  Schiller  and  Goethe."  And  thus 
there  was  heard  even  in  this  peaceful  gath- 
ering an  echo  of  the  conflict  which  is  di- 
viding modern  Germany  into  two  hostile 
camps — a  conflict  of  which  we  thus  far 
have  witnessed  only  the  beginning. 


28  Glimpses  of 


II.— THE  SOCIALIST  SITUATION 

August,   1895. 

The  little  town  of  Kolberg  in  Pomera- 
nia,  so  famous  for  the  bravery  displayed  by 
its  citizens  during  the  Napoleonic  invasion, 
was  recently  the  scene  of  a  somewhat  re- 
markable incident.  As  is  not  unusual  in 
German  watering-places,  the  bathing  es- 
tablishments of  Kolberg  are  under  the  su- 
pervision of  the  municipal  government, 
and  the  principal  hotel  of  the  town,  the  so- 
called  Strandschloss,  is  city  property.  As 
the  dining-hall  of  this  hotel  is  the  largest 
hall  in  the  town,  it  has  come  to  be  the  cus- 
tomary meeting-place  for  political  parties 
of  every  description.  Some  weeks  ago 
Bebel,  the  Socialist  leader,  was  to  give  an 
address  in  Kolberg.     The  local  committee 


Modem  German  Culture  29 

of  the  Socialist  party  applied'  to  the  mayor 
for  the  use  of  the  Strandschloss  hall  on  this 
occasion,  and  the  mayor,  himself  a  Liberal 
of  long  standing  and  a  man  without  any 
Socialistic  affiliations,  granted  the  request. 
The  meeting  took  place,  and  is  universally 
reported  to  have  been  perfectly  orderly  and 
well  behaved. 

So  far  so  good.  But  now  the  matter 
begins  to  be  interesting.  No  sooner  have 
the  state  authorities,  the  Landrat  of  the 
district  of  Kolberg  and  the  Regierungs- 
Prasident  of  the  province  of  Pomerania, 
been  informed  of  the  mayor's  compliance 
with  the  Socialist  petition  than  they  divine 
treason.  The  Landrat  endeavours  to  in- 
duce the  commander  of  the  Kolberg  gar- 
rison to  withdraw  the  regimental  band 
from  the  daily  concerts  in  the  Strand- 
schloss Park;  the  Regierungs-Prasident 
countermands  an  official  dinner  which  was 
to  be  held  in   the  Strandschloss,   and,   at 


30  Glimpses  of 

the  same  time,  requests  from  the  mayor  a 
prompt  justification  of  the  motives  that 
have  led  him  to  an  act  calculated  to  en- 
danger the  commercial  interests  as  well  as 
the  good  repute  of  the  city  of  Kolberg. 
And  when  the  mayor,  in  his  reply,  declares 
his  conduct  to  have  been  actuated  by  the 
demands  of  simple,  common  justice,  he  is 
fined  to  the  amount  of  ninety  marks  for 
misbehaviour  and  neglect  of  duty. 

Extraordinary  as  these  facts  are,  they  re- 
ceive their  proper  relief  only  through  the 
correspondence  between  Regierungs-Prasi- 
dent  and  mayor  occasioned  by  them.  The 
Regierungs-Prasident  distinctly  affirms  it 
to  be  incompatible  with  good  morals  and 
public  decency  to  have  any  relations  what- 
soever with  "  a  party  which  has  written  the 
overthrow  of  the  existing  social  order,  of 
the  monarchy,  and  the  Christian  religion 
on  its  banner."  The  mayor  asserts  with 
equal  directness  that  to  deprive  the  Social- 


Modern  German  Culture  31 

ists  of  the  rights  granted  to  all  other  po- 
litical parties  is  simply  shutting  one's  eyes 
to  the  fact  that  of  all  German  parties  they 
are,  numerically  at  least,  the  strongest: 

"  He  who  does  not  want  to  sit  where 
Socialists  have  sat,  will  nowadays  be  some- 
what embarassed  to  find  a  seat  anywhere 
in  Germany;  at  least  he  cannot  any  longer 
travel  in  railway  carriages.  What  we  eat 
and  drink  is  for  the  most  part  made  by 
Socialists.  Our  clothes  have  been  manu- 
factured by  Socialist  workingmen.  You 
cannot  live  in  a  new  house  in  the  building 
of  which  Socialists  have  not  been  engaged. 
In  short,  to  avoid  Socialists  or  to  stigmatise 
them  as  a  class  outside  of  the  pale  of  re- 
spectable society  is  an  absolutely  futile  task. 
Only  by  acknowledging  them  as  a  public 
factor  on  an  equality  with  all  other  public 
factors  can  the  social  peace  be  furthered.'' 

In  this  Kolberg  incident  we  have  in  a 
nutshell  the  whole  of  the  political  situation 


32  Glimpses  of 

in  Germany  with  regard  to  Socialism.  The 
Government,  on  the  one  hand,  since  the 
defeat  of  the  famous  anti-revolution  bill, 
is  more  eagerly  than  ever  resorting  to  a 
policy  of  small  advantages  and  petty  perse- 
cutions. Hardly  a  day  passes  without  the 
conviction  of  some  obscure  enemy  of  so- 
ciety, or  without  the  dissolution  of  some 
Socialistic  organisation.  Since  the  courts 
in  all  cases  of  lese-majesty — one  of  the 
most  common  forms  of  Socialistic  crimes — 
adopt  secret  sessions,  it  is  impossible  to 
get  anything  like  full  knowledge  of  this 
part  of  the  anti-Socialist  warfare.  But 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  ma- 
jority of  cases  is  not  very  different  from 
one  which  was  tried  before  a  Berlin  court 
a  few  days  ago  and  of  which  there  was 
given  out  the  following  official  report :  "  A 
butcher,  Franz  Rautenberg,  having  made 
some  contemptuous  remarks  about  the 
Emperor,   was   convicted   of  lese-majesty. 


Modern  German  Culture  33 

Although  the  incriminating  utterances  were 
not  of  an  out-and-out  insulting  nature,  the 
court  fixed  the  sentence  at  six  months'  im- 
prisonment, since  the  defendant  had  al- 
ready served  a  previous  term  of  two 
months  for  blasphemy,  and  consequently 
must  be  considered  as  predisposed  to  crim- 
inal acts  of  this  kind." 

In  cases  like  this  it  is  only  an  individual, 
and  perhaps  a  worthless  one,  who  is  hurled 
by  the  defenders  of  morality  into  utter 
moral  ruin.  But  it  is  not  individuals  only, 
it  is  above  all  the  party  organisations 
against  which  the  saviours  of  society  di- 
rect their  hollow  weapons.  That  in  Ham- 
burg a  few  weeks  ago  one  hundred  and 
fifty  working-women  were  fined  fifteen 
marks  each  for  belonging  to  a  club  in 
which  political  matters  were  discussed  (the 
privilege  of  forming  political  organisations 
being  reserved  to  men),  may  have  been 
reported    even    in    American    newspapers. 


34  Glimpses  of 

Less  striking,  but  none  the  less  significant, 
is  a  case  which  recently  happened  in  Cope- 
nick,  a  little  town  near  Berlin.  There  ex- 
ists in  Copenick  a  Socialist  Wahlverein, 
comprising  some  twelve  to  sixteen  mem- 
bers, who  meet  as  a  rule  every  two  weeks. 
At  one  of  their  last  meetings  they  were 
surprised  to  see  a  policeman  enter  at  ten 
o'clock  and  demand  an  adjournment,  on 
account  of  the  "  Polizeistunde "  having 
struck.  The  members  of  the  club  naturally 
protested  against  this  action,  pleading  that 
their  club  as  a  closed  society  was  not  sub- 
ject to  the  ordinary  police  regulations. 
But  the  Oberverwaltungs-Gericht,  before 
which,  as  the  highest  tribunal,  this  protest, 
in  the  ordinary  course  of  judicial  proceed- 
ings, was  carried,  decided  that,  inasmuch 
as  the  club  in  question  had  not  a  fixed 
membership,  but  could  be  joined  on  pay- 
ment of  a  small  fee  by  any  sympathiser 
with  the  Socialist  cause,  it  was  not  a  closed 


Modern  German  Culture  35 

society;  that  its  meetings  were  not  private 
meetings,  but  public  gatherings,  and  there- 
fore subject  to  all  the  regulations  which  are 
in  force  for  public  gatherings;  that,  in 
short,  every  one  of  its  meetings  must  be 
announced  beforehand  to  the  police  au- 
thorities and  must  be  attended  by  a  police 
officer. 

It  is  clear  that  this  decision  of  the  Ober- 
verwaltungs-Gericht,  if  carried  out  con- 
sistently, will  put  a  speedy  end  in  Prussia 
to  all  political  clubs  which,  for  one  reason 
or  another,  are  inconvenient  to  the  Gov- 
ernment. For  it  would  be  hard  to  find  a 
political  club  of  any  description  the  mem- 
bership of  which  was  not  equally  elastic 
with  that  of  the  Copenick  Wahlverein,  and 
would  not  consequently  come  under  the 
same  kind  of  police  supervision.  And  it 
is  not  surprising  that  already  the  larger 
Socialist  organisations,  as,  for  instance,  the 
Berlin  Freie  Volksbiihne,  which  at  present 


36  Glimpses  of 

is  a  body  of  some  8,000  members  admitted 
by  the  payment  of  a  small  fee,  are  prepar- 
ing for  voluntary  dissolution,  of  course 
only  in  order  to  carry  on  their  work  un- 
molested by  official  interference,  under  the 
disguise  of  some  other  less  compact  and 
palpable  form. 

While  the  Government  is  thus  wasting 
its  strength  in  the  futile  attempt  to  fight 
the  Socialist  propaganda  with  petty  police 
annoyances,  the  country  seems  to  be  re- 
sistlessly  drifting  into  the  arms  of  this  very 
propaganda. 

It  is  a  sad  fact,  but  it  is  none  the  less  a 
fact,  that,  twenty-five  years  after  the  foun- 
dation of  the  German  Empire,  German 
party  life  has  reached  a  degree  of  confusion 
hardly  less  obnoxious  than  was  the  ab- 
sence of  all  parliamentary  institutions  under 
the  old  Bundestag  regime.  There  is  act- 
ually not  a  single  German  party,  except  the 
Social  Democratic,  which,  either  on  account 


Modern  German  Culture  37 

of  its  size  or  the  consistency  of  its  pro- 
gramme, seems  destined  to  be  a  controlling 
power  in  national  affairs.  The  Conserva- 
tives, naturally  the  allies  of  a  government 
which  for  generations  has  been  accustomed 
to  rely  principally  on  the  unwavering  sup- 
port of  the  landed  gentry,  have  been  forced 
into  a  perfectly  untenable  position  through 
their  exclusively  agrarian  policy  and  their 
consequent  opposition  to  the  governmental 
policy  of  a  tentative  free  trade.  The  Cen- 
tre party,  since  the  death  of  Windthorst, 
the  only  man  who  was  able  to  control 
its  centrifugal  tendencies,  is  more  and 
more  tending  towards  an  open  rupture 
between  its  feudal  and  its  radical  ele- 
ments. And,  what  is  most  momentous 
of  all,  the  very  class  which,  after  all, 
has  had  the  largest  share  in  securing 
to  Germany  her  present  position  as  a 
leading  power  among  the  nations  of  the 
world  in  intellectual,  industrial,  and  com- 

173 


3  8  Glimpses  of 

mercial  progress — the  "  bourgeoisie  " — 
is  politically  reduced  to  absolute  impo- 
tence: whatever  there  is  left  of  the  old 
Liberal  party  is  a  mere  name  and  shadow. 
It  is  only  natural  that  this  condition 
of  things — a  condition  unquestionably 
brought  about  through  the  Bismarckian 
policy  of  playing  off  one  party  against  an- 
other without  allowing  either  to  obtain  a 
share  in  the  government — should  have  led 
to  a  general  discontent  and  uneasiness 
throughout  the  German  land,  the  intensity 
of  which  it  would  be  hard  to  overestimate. 
The  farmer  declaims  against  the  commer- 
cial treaties  with  Russia  and  Austria,  which 
are  ruining  his  wheat  trade;  the  manufact- 
urer rebels  against  the  burden  imposed 
upon  him  through  the  accident-  and  old- 
age  insurance  laws,  the  bureaucratic  pro- 
visions of  which  seem  to  make  the  larger 
part  of  the  contributions  intended  for  the 
benefit  of  the  labourer  go  to  maintain  an 


Modern  German  Culture  39 

army  of  petty  administrative  officers;  the 
small  tradesman  and  artisan  clamour 
against  the  ruthless  monopoly  of  trusts, 
and  demand  the  restitution  of  the  old-time 
guilds;  and  everybody  is  disgusted  with  a 
government  on  which  it  is  impossible  to 
place  any  reliance,  a  government  which 
will  undo  to-morrow  what  it  has  done  to- 
day, a  government  which  is  nothing  but  a 
tool  in  the  hands  of  a  restless,  impetuous, 
and  eccentric  sovereign  of  the  Stuart  order. 
Is  it  surprising  that,  under  these  circum- 
stances, the  only  party  which  is  unwilling 
to  make  any  compromise  with  the  ruling- 
system,  which  stands  unwaveringly  by  the 
programme  of  a  radical  democracy,  should 
rapidly  increase  its  ranks?  Is  it,  in  other 
words,  surprising  that  the  Socialist  party 
is  fast  developing  into  the  only  formidable 
opposition  party,  so  that  the  time  may  be 
foreseen  when  the  Socialist  leaders  will  at 
the  same  time  be  among  the  foremost  lead- 
ers of  Parliament? 


4o  Glimpses  of 

That,  on  the  other  hand,  this  very  party 
is  more  and  more  losing  its  exclusively 
socialistic  character,  that  it  is  more  and 
more  converting  itself  into  a  party  of  peace- 
ful, though  radical  reform,  that  it  looks  to 
a  final  absorption  of  all  the  liberal  elements 
of  the  country,  is  a  fact  which  only  the 
blindest  fanaticism  can  deny.  The  time  is 
long  past  when  the  Socialist  meetings  were 
gatherings  of  the  mob.  To-day  the  So- 
cialist organisations  which  devote  them- 
selves to  the  elevation  of  the  masses,  to 
the  spreading  of  moral  and  political  en- 
lightenment, to  the  cultivation  of  science, 
literature,  music,  and  other  forms  of  intel- 
lectual refinement,  are  legion.  To-day,  it 
is  a  principle  adopted  by  the  rank  and  file 
as  well  as  by  the  leaders  of  the  party,  that 
the  only  way  to  combat  successfully  the 
ruling  system  of  militarism  and  officialdom 
is  the  peaceful  revolutionising  of  minds, 
not  a  violent  convulsion  of  the  social  order. 


Modern  German  Culture  41 

And  if  the  present  development  is  allowed 
to  go  on  unchecked  by  international  con- 
flicts or  other  complications,  we  may  look 
forward  to  the  formation  of  a  party  resting 
on  the  broad  masses  of  the  working  popu- . 
lation  and  the  small  trades  people,  but 
reaching  out  into  the  sphere  of  the  well- 
to-do  burgherdom  and  yeomanry;  and  this 
party  will  control  the  majority  of  the 
Reichstag.  When  this  moment  arrives,  the 
real  struggle  for  civic  freedom  in  Germany 
will  begin. 


4 2  Glimpses  of 


III.  —  WILDENBRUCH'S  "KING 

HENRY"  AND  HAUPT- 

MANN'S  "  FLORIAN 

GEYER " 

May,   1896. 

Ernst  von  Wildenbruch  and  Gerhart 
Hauptmann  are,  in  a  way,  representatives  of 
two  extremes  in  contemporary  German 
literature.  Wildenbruch,  fiery,  passionate, 
rhetorical;  Hauptmann,  dreamy,  brood- 
ing, visionary.  Wildenbruch,  an  ardent 
monarchist,  a  zealous  supporter  of  the 
present  regime,  seeing  the  salvation  of 
Germany  in  a  continued  supremacy  of 
Bismarckian  principles;  Hauptmann,  a 
Democrat  if  not  a  Socialist,  in  deepest 
sympathy  with  the  sufferings  of  the  "  dis- 
inherited,"  hoping  for  the  millennium  of 


Modern  German  Culture         43 

universal  brotherhood.  Wildenbruch,  an 
idealist  of  the  straightforward,  tmreflective 
type,  sunny,  serene,  somewhat  inclined  to- 
ward melodramatic  effects;  Hauptmann,  a 
strange  mixture  of  a  pessimistic  realism 
and  of  a  mystic  faith  in  the  glory  of  the 
unseen,  disdaining  all  that  is  not  absolutely 
genuine  and  true.  Wildenbruch  the  great- 
er playwright;  Hauptmann  the  greater 
poet.  This  contrast  of  artistic  temper, 
while  it  marks  the  whole  literary  career  of 
the  two  men,  has  never  been  brought  out 
more  conspicuously  than  in  the  two  great 
historical  dramas  which  have  been  the 
event  of  the  year  on  the  Berlin  stage: 
Hauptmann's  "  Florian  Geyer  "  and  Wil- 
denbruch's  "  Heinrich  und  Heinrichs 
Geschlecht." 

That  Wildenbruch's  "  Heinrich  "  should 
have  easily  carried  off  the  crown  of  popu- 
lar success,  is  not  surprising.  As  a  stage 
show    it    is    simply    overwhelming.     Here 


44  Glimpses  of 

we  have  all  the  brilliancy  of  diction,  the 
intensity  of  action,  the  irresistible  surging 
up  to  a  grand  climax  which  give  eternal 
youth  to  Schiller's  dramas;  and,  added 
thereto,  we  have  the  lifelikeness,  the  pal- 
pability, the  breadth  of  detail,  in  which 
modern  realism  revels.  Here  we  see,  in- 
deed, the  gigantic  figure  of  History  her- 
self striding  over  the  stage,  but  we  also 
see  our  own  feelings,  longings,  and  aspi- 
rations embodied  in  human  forms,  and  rec- 
ognise them  as  the  real  movers  and  mak- 
ers of  national  destinies.  The  subject  of 
the  drama  is  a  struggle  which,  as  Bis- 
mark  has  said,  dates  back  to  the  days  when 
Agamemnon  quarrelled  with  Calchas,  the 
struggle  between  king  and  priest.  The 
principal  combatants  in  this  struggle  are 
Henry  IV  and  Gregory  VII;  the  prize  for 
which  it  is  fought  out  is  Germany.  With 
true  dramatic  instinct  Wildenbruch 
throughout    the   play — which    is    intended 


Modern  German  Culture         45 

for  two  successive  evenings — maintains 
himself  on  the  very  height  of  his  subject; 
he  leaps,  as  it  were,  from  catastrophe  to 
catastrophe,  leaving  it  to  the  imagination 
of  his  hearers  to  make  its  way  after  him 
through  the  dark  glens  and  ravines  that 
lead  up  to  these  shining  mountain  peaks. 

In  the  beginning  we  see  Henry  as  a  boy, 
an  impetuous,  imperious  youth,  smarting 
under  the  discipline  of  a  fanatically  relig- 
ious mother,  burning  with  the  desire  to 
equal  the  fame  of  his  heroic  father,  at  last 
thrust  into  the  prison  walls  of  monastic  as- 
ceticism under  the  tutorship  of  Anno, 
Archbishop  of  Cologne.  Next  he  appears 
as  King,  in  the  acme  of  his  power.  He 
has  subdued  the  rebellious  Saxons;  he  en- 
ters triumphantly  his  faithful  Worms;  he  is 
received  by  the  citizens  as  the  protector  of 
civil  freedom  against  princely  tyranny  and 
clerical  arrogance;  all  Germany  seems  to 
rise  in  a  grand  ovation  to  her  beloved  lead- 


46  Glimpses  of 

er.  Intoxicated  by  his  success,  he  resents 
all  the  more  deeply  the  paternal  admoni- 
tions of  Pope  Gregory  about  the  looseness 
of  his  private  life  which  are  just  then  con- 
veyed to  him;  he  insists  on  being  crowned 
Emperor  at  once;  and,  when  this  request 
is  not  complied  with,  he  allows  himself  to 
be  carried  away  by  his  indomitable  wrath, 
he  forces  his  bishops  into  that  insulting  let- 
ter by  which  Gregory  is  declared  a  usurper, 
a  felon,  a  blasphemer,  to  be  driven  out 
from  the  sanctuary  of  the  Church  which  he 
pollutes  by  his  presence. 

And  now  we  are  introduced  to  the  other 
great  character  of  the  drama,  to  the  oppo- 
site of  this  fiery,  unmanageable  young 
ruler,  to  Gregory,  the  self-possessed  and 
.self-abasing  priest,  the  man  in  whose  soul 
there  seems  to  be  no  room  for  any  passion 
except  the  passion  for  the  cause  of  the 
Church,  for  the  triumph  of  the  spirit  over 
the  flesh,  and  who  nevertheless  harbours  in 


Modern  German  Culture  47 

his  breast,  unknown  to  himself,  the  most 
consuming  ambition  and  the  most  colossal 
egotism.  We  see  him  sitting  in  cathedra 
in  the  basilica  of  Santa  Maria  Maggiore. 
Suppliants  and  criminals  are  brought  be- 
fore him.  A  Flemish  count,  who  has  com- 
mitted murder,  and  who  has  in  vain  fled 
throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of 
Europe  in  quest  of  delivery  from  the 
anguish  of  his  tormented  conscience, 
beseeches  the  Pope  to  put  an  end  to 
his  wretched  life;  Gregory,  instead,  holds 
out  to  him  the  hope  of  salvation 
through  joining  a  crusade.  A  Roman 
noble,  who  in  robber  knight  fashion  has 
made  an  assault  upon  the  Pope,  and 
who  by  the  clergy  and  the  people  has  been 
condemned  to  death  for  this  crime,  is  par- 
doned by  Gregory — "  for  he  has  sinned, 
not  against  the  Church,  the  holy  one,  but 
against  Gregory,  a  poor,  feeble  mortal." 
A  lay  brother  of  St.  Peter's  who,  disguised 


48  Glimpses  of 

as  priest,  has  taken  money  from  foreign 
pilgrims  for  reading  mass  to  them,  and 
who  by  the  clergy  and  the  people  has  been 
sentenced  to  a  fine  and  exile,  is  ordered  by 
Gregory  to  be  thrown  into  the  Tiber — "for 
he  has  sinned  against  the  Church,  he  has 
cheated  human  souls  of  their  salvation." 

These  scenes  have  just  passed  before  our 
eyes  when  the  messengers  of  King  Henry, 
bearing  „the  letter  of  libel  and  vilification, 
are  admitted.  Gregory  is  the  only  one  who 
in  the  tumult  that  follows  its  reading  re- 
mains absolutely  calm;  he  protects  the 
messenger  himself  against  the  rage  of  the 
Romans;  he  forgives  Henry,  the  man,  for 
what  he  has  said  against  Gregory,  the  man. 

"  For  what  he  has  said  against  the  head 
of  the  Holy  Church,  for  that  let  Henry  be 
cursed !  I  forbid  all  Christians  to  serve  thee 
as  a  King,  I  release  them  from  the  oath 
that  they  have  sworn  thee.  Thou,  dark- 
ness   revolting    against    light,    return  to 


Modern  German  Culture         49 

chaos!  Thou,  wave  revolting  against  the 
ocean,  return  to  naught!  No  bell  shall  be 
sounded  in  the  city  where  Henry  dwells,  no 
church  be  opened,  no  sacrament  be  admin- 
istered. Where  Henry  dwells,  death  shall 
dwell !  Let  my  legates  go  forth  and  an- 
nounce my  message  to  the  world !  " 

The  climax  of  the  whole  drama  is,  as  it 
should  be,  the  Canossa  catastrophe.  It  is 
here  that  Gregory,  the  victor  in  the  politi- 
cal game,  succumbs  morally;  that  Henry, 
the  vanquished,  rises  in  his  native  great- 
ness. It  is  here  that  Gregory,  with  all  his 
soaring  idealism,  reveals  himself  as  an  in- 
human monster;  that  Henry,  with  all  his 
faults  and  frailties,  arouses  to  the  full  the 
sympathy  which  we  cannot  help  feeling  for 
a  bravely  struggling  man. 

The  excommunication  of  Henry  has 
plunged  Germany  into  civil  war.  A  rival 
king,  Rudolf  of  Swabia,  has  been  proclaim- 
ed.    He  and  the  chiefs  of  his  party  have 


50  Glimpses  of 

come  to  Canossa  to  obtain  the  papal  sanc- 
tion for  their  revolt.  Gregory  clearly  sees 
that  Rudolf  is  nothing  but  a  figure-head,  a 
mere  tool  in  the  hands  of  fanatic  conspira- 
tors, totally  unfit  to  rule  an  empire.  He 
clearly  feels  it  his  duty  to  discountenance 
this  revolt,  to  restore  peace  to  Germany  by 
making  his  peace  with  Henry.  But  the 
demon  of  ambition  lurking  in  his  breast  be- 
guiles him  with  a  vision  of  world  domin- 
ion; he,  the  servant  of  the  servants  of  God, 
shall  be  the  arbiter  of  Europe;  he,  the  ple- 
beian, shall  see  the  crowns  of  kings  roll 
before  him  in  the  dust.  He  does  not  dis- 
countenance Rudolf  and  his  party;  and 
when  Henry  appears  before  the  castle, 
broken  and  humiliated,  asking  for  absolu- 
tion from  the  ban,  Gregory  remains  un- 
moved. For  three  days  and  nights  the 
King  stands  before  the  gate  in  ice  and  snow; 
for  three  days  and  nights  the  Pope  sits  in 
his  chair,  speechless,  sleepless,  refusing  to 


Modern  German  Culture  5 1 

eat  or  drink.  At  last,  the  intercession  of 
Henry's  mother,  who,  herself  in  the 
shadow  of  death,  has  come  to  pray  for  her 
son's  salvation,  softens  Gregory's  heart :  he 
admits  Henry  to  his  presence.  Henry  ap- 
pears, a  king  even  in  his  misery.  He  bends 
his  knee  before  the  Pope,  he  confesses  his 
guilt,  he  acknowledges  the  justice  of  his 
punishment.  The  reconciliation  is  brought 
about.  Just  then  Henry's  glance  falls  upon 
Rudolf  and  his  followers  standing  in  the 
background.  He  greets  them  as  friends, 
thinking  that  they  have  come  to  renew  their 
allegiance  to  him.  But  they  rudely  repulse 
him,  and  boast  of  the  Pope's  intention  to 
acknowledge  Rudolf  as  King.  And  Greg- 
ory does  not  contradict  them.  With  fear- 
ful suddenness  Henry  sees  what  a  shameful 
game  has  been  played  with  him;  and  yet 
he  masters  himself,  he  makes  one  last  ap- 
peal to  whatever  there  is  of  true  feeling  in 
his  opponent: 


52  Glimpses  of 

"  God,  help  me  against  myself !  Christ, 
Saviour,  who  wast  thyself  a  king  among 
the  heavenly  host  and  didst  bow  thy  neck 
under  the  scourge,  help  me  against  myself ! 
(He  turns  abruptly  toivard  Gregory?)  Once 
before  I  knelt  before  thee — I  did  it 
for  myself.  {He  falls  down  on  his  knees?) 
Here,  a  second  time,  I  lie  before  thee,  for 
Germany  lie  I  here!  Break  thy  silence! 
Thy  silence  is  the  coffin  in  which  the  hap- 
piness of  Germany  is  entombed !  If  thou 
didst  know  how  unhappy  this  Germany  is 
thou  wouldst  speak — speak!  Thou,  or- 
dained by  God  to  bring  peace  to  the  world, 
let  me  take  peace  with  me  on  my  way  to 
Germany,  not  war,  not  howling  civil  war !  " 

And  Gregory  remains  silent ! — From 
here  on  to  the  end  of  the  drama  there  is 
nothing  but  revenge,  and  revenge  on  re- 
venge. And  this  work  of  destruction  does 
not  stop  until  both  Gregory  and  Henry  have 
breathed  their  last.     Both  men  die  in  de- 


Modern  German  Culture  53 

feat  and  desolation — Gregory  hearing  from 
his  death-bed  the  jubilant  shouts  of  the 
faithless  Romans  as  they  greet  the  trium- 
phant entry  of  a  rival  pope,  Henry  driven 
into  exile  and  hunted  down  by  the  minions 
of  his  rebellious  son.  Both  die  inwardly 
unbroken — Gregory  trusting  in  the  future 
triumph  of  the  Church,  Henry  trusting  in 
the  indestructible  vitality  of  the  German 
people. 

A  few  words  may  be  added  about  Haupt- 
mann's  "  Florian  Geyer,"  although  it  is  im- 
possible to  do  justice  to  this  work  except 
by  reading  and  analysing  it  scene  by  scene. 
The  defects  of  Hauptmann's  dramatic  style 
are  here,  perhaps,  more  clearly  visible  than 
in  any  previous  production  of  his.  The 
lack  of  unity,  the  absence  of  a  true  hero, 
which  were  seen  in  "  Die  Weber,"  charac- 
terise this  drama  also.  And,  in  addition 
to  this,  there  is  a  slowness  and  diffuseness 
of  movement  which   must  be  fatal  to  its 


54  Glimpses  of 

effect  as  a  theatrical  piece.  And  yet  it  is 
impossible  to  resist  the  impression  that 
here  we  are  face  to  face  with  the  creation 
of  a  great  artist.  Hauptmann  sees  things 
not  as  they  appear  on  the  stage,  but  as 
they  are  in  life.  He  seems  to  have  no 
thought  of  how  his  figures  may  affect  his 
hearers.  He  simply  tells  what  he  sees,  and 
he  tells  it  with  that  wonderful  directness 
which  is  the  privilege  of  children  and  poets. 
Not  a  phrase  which  could  not  thus  have 
been  spoken;  not  an  event  which  could  not 
thus  have  taken  place;  not  a  character  which 
would  not  probably  have  taken  just  this 
turn;  and  beneath  all  this  realism,  that 
strange  belief  in  a  hidden  life  which  makes 
us  feel  that  all  these  outward  happenings 
are  only  feeble  manifestations  of  some 
grand  mysterious  central  force  working 
under  their  surface.  This  is  the  manner  in 
which  Hauptmann  in  this  drama  makes  us 
live  through  the  great  German  peasant  re- 


Modern  German  Culture  55 

volt  of  the  sixteenth  century,  its  glorious 
beginning  and  its  miserable  end;  its  hopes, 
triumphs,  excesses,  massacres,  failures;  its 
noble  enthusiasm,  its  dark  fanaticism,  its 
savageness  and  greed,  its  egotism  and  pet- 
tiness. And  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 
in  order  to  understand  what  is  implied  by 
the  word  "  Revolution,"  one  could  do  no 
better  than  to  study  the  details  of  this 
strangely  monotonous  and  strangely  fasci- 
nating picture  of  popular  wrath  and  popu- 
lar delusion. 

That  German  literature  during  the  last 
decade  has  entered  upon  a  new  era  of  gen- 
uine productivity  must  have  been  clear  for 
some  time  past  to  every  intelligent  ob- 
server. That  this  new  movement  should 
have  acquired  sufficient  strength  to  pro- 
duce, only  a  year  or  two  after  the  triumphs 
achieved  by  "  Heimat  "  and  "  Die  Weber," 
two  dramas  of  such  heroic  dimensions  and 
such  extraordinary  power  as  Hauptmann's 


56  Glimpses  of 

"  Florian  Geyer "  and  Wildenbruch's 
"  Heinrich,"  is  nevertheless  a  surprise,  and 
seems  to  justify  the  hopes  of  those  who 
see  in  the  present  revolt  against  conven- 
tions the  dawn  of  another  epoch  of  classic 
perfection  of  form. 


Modern  German  Culture  S7 


IV.— JOHANNA  AMBROSIUS 

August,   1896. 

Until  within  a  year  and  a  half  ago  the 
name  of  Johanna  Ambrosius  was  not 
known  outside  of  the  little  East  Prussian 
village  where  she  herself,  as  the  wife  of  a 
poor  peasant,  led  a  humble  and  monoto- 
nous existence.  To-day  her  poems  have 
passed  through  the  twenty-seventh  edition, 
and  she  is  hailed  throughout  Germany  as 
a  lyric  genius  destined  to  play  an  import- 
ant part  in  the  literary  revival  which  has 
been  so  brilliantly  initiated  by  the  dramatic 
achievements  of  Sudermann  and  his  asso- 
ciates. What  is  it  that  has  given  this 
simple  peasant  woman,  whose  intellectual 
resources  until  very  recently  were  confined 
to  a  few  back  volumes   of  the   "  Garten- 


5  8  Glimpses  of 

laube,"  such  an  extraordinary  hold  on  the 
national  heart?  What  is  it  that  has  raised 
her  at  one  stroke  far  above  the  host  of 
clever  and  refined  singers  who,  during  the 
last  thirty  years,  have  re-echoed  the  melo- 
dies of  the  great  masters? 

The  secret,  I  think,  lies  in  this,  that  in 
Johanna  Ambrosius  there  has  arisen  a  new 
voice  in  the  struggle  for  the  emancipation 
of  the  German  woman.  Whatever  one 
may  think  of  this  movement,  it  would  be 
folly  to  deny  either  its  volume  or  its 
strength.  It  is  naturally  strongest  in  so- 
cialistic circles;  indeed,  the  Social-Demo- 
cratic party  is  thus  far  the  only  political 
organisation  which  has  allowed  women  a 
considerable  share  in  its  meetings  and  de- 
liberations. But  the  influence  of  the  wo- 
man movement  is  by  no  means  confined  to 
Socialist  gatherings.  It  pervades  the  air, 
it  is  felt  in  the  family,  it  agitates  the  univer- 
sities, it  has  entered  the  drawing-rooms,  it 


Modern  German  Culture  59 

has  deeply  affected  the  novel  and  the 
drama;  everywhere  we  notice  as  one  of 
the  leading  forces  of  the  day  the  striving-  of 
woman  for  a  fuller  and  more  complete  in- 
dividuality. If  this  were  not  so,  such  a 
figure  as  Sudermann's  Magxla  could  not 
have  been  created. 

There  is  a  good  deal  of  family  likeness 
between  the  heroine  of  "  Heimat "  and 
Johanna  Ambrosius.  The  circumstances 
are  different,  the  abiding  traits  of  character 
are  the  same:  in  Sudermann's  drama,  an 
impetuous,  unruly  girl,  who,  craving  for  a 
fuller  life  than  that  afforded  by  "  respec- 
table "  society,  falls  a  prey  to  sin,  and 
through  sin  rises  to  the  level  of  her  true 
self;  in  the  East-Prussian  peasant  home 
which  has  been  and  still  is  the  scene  of 
Johanna  Ambrosius's  life,  the  agonies  and 
struggles  of  a  woman  who,  harbouring  in 
herself  a  world  of  passion,  longing,  and 
ideal  striving,   is   smothered   by  the   hard 


60  Glimpses  of 

facts  of  actual  starvation,  degrading  toil, 
and  absolute  intellectual  loneliness — until 
at  last  the  long  repressed  despair  breaks 
Forth  with  volcanic  power,  shakes  the  very 
foundations  of  this  life,  and  lifts  it  into  a 
higher  sphere. 

Of  Johanna's  mental  development  her 
sister,  who,  it  seems,  has  been  the  only  one 
to  stand  faithfully  by  her  in  all  these 
gloomy  struggles,  has  given  a  sympathetic 
sketch,  from  which  a  passage  relating  to 
the  years  of  girlish  maturity  and  early  mar- 
ried life  may  here  be  quoted: 

"  Even  in  those  early  days,"  she  says, 
"  we  both  felt  how  alone  we  stood  in  our 
village  surroundings.  Our  squls  began  to 
retire  within  themselves;  the  longing  for 
freedom,  for  light,  for  life  became  irresist- 
ible. Johanna  had  outgrown  the  obedi- 
ence demanded  by  her  parents,  but  oppres- 
sive to  body  and  soul;  her  own  will  often 
manifested  itself;  and,  half  following  her 


Modern  German  Culture  61 

will,  half  submitting  to  the  force  of  cir- 
cumstances, she  entered  service  in  the 
house  of  strangers.  Perhaps  she  hoped  to 
find  outside  of  her  family  what  her  soul 
craved.  She  soon  returned  home,  and,  in 
order  to  find  freedom,  as  she  thought,  she 
accepted  the  hand  of  a  simple,  but  good 
and  honest  peasant  lad.  By  the  side  of  the 
man  of  her  choice  Johanna  went  with  eyes 
open  into  poverty  and  hardest  toil.  Proud 
and  uncomplaining,  she  bore  the  self-chosen 
fate  until  she  lay  broken  on  the  ground. 
The  whole  misery  of  a  life  wrestling  in  vain 
for  food  had  seized  upon  her.  Out  of  the 
night  of  these  boundless  sufferings  there 
rose — the  poet." 

It  would  be  indelicate  to  pry  into  the 
details  of  the  family  tragedy  which  these 
words  half  disclose  and  half  conceal.  Some 
German  literary  periodicals  have  already 
given  too  much  publicity  to  them.  From 
the  merely  personal  point  of  view,  it  might 


62  Glimpses  of 

even  seem  as  though  too  much  sympathy 
had  been  accorded  to  Johanna  herself,  and 
too  little  to  the  "simple,  but  good  and  hon- 
est peasant  "  whose  fate,  by  the  side  of  this 
fiery,  soaring  idealist,  appears  pathetic  in 
the  extreme.  What  makes  Johanna  Am- 
brosius  such  a  remarkable,  nay,  inspiring 
figure  in  the  modern  woman  movement, 
is  the  fact  that  her  own  sufferings,  instead 
of  embittering  her,  have  opened  her  heart 
to  the  woe  of  all  her  fellow-sufferers,  that 
her  own  struggles  have  made  her  a  leader 
in  the  universal  struggle  for  a  fuller  hu- 
manity. 

The  most  striking  note  of  her  poetry,  to 
be  sure,  is  one  of  passionate  longing  for  a 
happiness  which  she  knows  can  never  be 
hers.  She  fairly  revels  in  the  maddening 
consciousness  of  being  forever  shut  out 
from  life's  best  gifts — peace  of  soul  and  in- 
tellectual companionship.  She  consumes 
herself  in  the  thought  of  what  might  have 


Modern  German  Culture  63 

been.  There  was  a  time  when  her  heart 
swelled  with  hope,  when  the  fata  morgana 
of  love  conjured  up  before  her  a  world  of 
bliss  and  beauty.  But  all  that  is  now  for- 
ever destroyed,  and  all  is  dark.  "  Ah,  bind 
my  hands  with  iron  chains,  lest  they  draw 
a  beloved  head  to  my  bosom !  Wall  in  my 
heart  and  close  it  fast,  lest  the  flames  of 
love  blaze  forth  from  its  windows !  Make 
me  deaf,  make  me  blind,  lest  I  see  happi- 
ness !  Oh  miserable,  God-forsaken  child 
that  I  am !  "  She  sits  at  dusk  by  the  hearth, 
and  gazes  into  the  flickering  fire  as  it 
dances  up  and  down  before  her  eyes,  for 
a  moment  bringing  back  the  colour  of 
youth  to  her  cheeks,  awakening  in  her  the 
glow  of  long-suppressed  passion  and  de- 
sire, and  then  quickly  dying  away — oh, 
that  the  raging  fire  within  might  consume 
itself  as  quickly!  She  consecrates  her 
songs  to  Pain,  her  best  and  inseparable 
friend.     He    stands    before    her    threshold 


64  Glimpses  of 

with  drawn  sword,  and  wards  off  whoever 
might  disturb  them;  only  his  sister. Sorrow 
he  at  times  invites  to  keep  them  company : 

"  Nur  manchmal  ladet  er  zu  Gaste 
Sich  seine  Schwester  Leid, 
Die  bleibt  dann  lang  bei  uns  zu  Raste, 
Und  naht  fur  mich  ein  Kleid." 

She  cries  out  to  God  to  make  an  end  of 
it;  to  deliver  her  at  last  from  ever  pressing 
the  wounded  breast  against  the  rocks,  from 
lying  bound  without  being  allowed  to  rest 
her  head;  to  take  from  her  the  glowing 
chains  which  with  hellish  fire  are  burning 
deep  into  her  heart. 

Whatever  she  sees  about  her  assumes 
the  melancholy  hue  of  her  own  darkened 
existence.  She  tells  of  how  "  Mariechen, 
susses  Mariechen  mein,"  the  fairest  girl  in 
the  village,  is  plunged  into  misery  by  the 
old  witch  Care;  how  the  happiness  of  her 
young  married  life  is  poisoned  by  want; 
how  the  same  man  who  had  loved  her  so 
fervently,  embittered  and  hardened  by  his 


Modern  German  Culture  65 

and  his  children's  hunger,  turns  away  from 
her,  and  at  last  raises  his  arm  to  strike 
her: 

"  Der  Schlag  traf  gut,  nun  noch  ein  Hieb  : 
Ade,  Du  Gliick,  gebaut  auf  Lieb  ! 
Die  alte  Hex'  Sorg'  in  die  Faust  sich  lacht, 
Und  schleicht  sich  weiter  durch  Nebel  und  Nacht. 
Was  wimmert  so  schmerzlich  im  Sternenschein  ? 
Ach  Mariechen,  susses  Mariechen  mein  !" 

She  describes  a  peaceful  farmhouse  en- 
closed by  wheat-fields.  Its  white  gable 
blinks  cheerfully  through  a  cluster  of  hem- 
locks; like  a  column  of  frankincense,  the 
smoke  rises  from  the  thatched  roof  and 
loses  itself  in  the  evening  red;  the  spring 
water  gently  trickles  over  the  mossy  stones 
of  the  well;  the  doves  are  cooing  in  their 
cotes,  swallows  are  chasing  through  the  air, 
a  cat  lies  sleepy  on  the  threshold.  But 
where  is  the  housewife,  where  the  farm 
hands?  From  the  fields  she  comes,  with 
her  child.  Cold  as  marble  is  her  face,  her 
forehead  overshadowed  with  grief.  Shyly 
she  gathers  the  broken  pots  and  glasses 


66  Glimpses  of 

strewn  about  in  the  yard.  Has  a  storm 
raged  here?  Has  some  evil  spirit  entered? 
In  the  arbour  lies  the  husband  by  the  side 
of  his  bottle. 

With  all  this  gloom,  the  poetry  of  Jo- 
hanna Ambrosius  as  a  whole  is  far  from 
having  a  discouraging  or  depressing  effect. 
There  is  nothing  enervating,  nothing  dis- 
integrating in  it.  While  often  reminding 
us  of  Heine's  truthfulness  and  simplicity, 
this  woman  has  nothing  of  Heine's  scepti- 
cism. Even  in  her  saddest  moods  we  rec- 
ognise a  bravely  struggling  soul,  a  char- 
acter faithful  to  itself,  a  heart  embracing 
all  mankind.  Her  woes  have  sanctified 
her;  they  have  strengthened  her  trust  in 
the  final  victory  of  goodness  and  right; 
they  have  fanned  in  her  a  burning  desire 
to  help,  to  comfort,  to  inspire.  And  al- 
though the  range  of  her  thought  is  nar- 
row, she  compensates  us  for  this  by  a  fresh- 
ness of  feeling  which  gives  even  the  oldest 


Modern  German  Culture  67 

truths  the  stamp  of  a  new  acquisition.  It 
is  indeed  touching  to  hear  this  daughter  of 
the  people  speak  of  the  exalted  mission  of 
the  poet :  "  Through  sleepless  nights  in 
the  throes  of  creation  he  moans  for  the 
lost  Paradise;  he  weeps  for  all  men,  he 
bears  the  burden  of  all  mankind;  he  dyes 
the  roses  with  his  heart's  blood,  he  bleach- 
es the  lilies  with  his  tears;  his  poems  are 
sighs,  they  are  prayers  offered  up  to  God 
from  the  depth  of  his  soul  for  the  sake  of 
a  suffering  world. — Oh  bear  them  lovingly 
in  your  hearts,  like  your  own  children ! 
You  know  not  from  what  pains  they  have 
been  born."  And  who  could  help  being 
moved  by  that  "  Last  Song "  which  this 
peasant  woman  would  fain  sing,  a  song 
which  shall  be  wafted  through  the  world 
like  a  gentle  breeze  of  May,  which  shall 
bring  refreshment  to  the  dying,  which  shall 
calm  all  pain  and  encourage  all  good  fight- 
ers, and  which  at  last  shall  swell  into  a 


68  Glimpses  of 

raging  gale  and  drive  the  serpent  Sin  back 
into  the  sea?  When  this  song  shall  be  ac- 
complished, the  singer  herself  will  break 
her  lyre  and  sing  no  more;  in  the  forest 
would  she  be  buried,  and  none  should 
know  who  conceived  the  song: 

"  Im  Wald  miisst  ihr  verscharren 
Mich  Heimlich  unterm  Tann, 
Und  Niemand  sollt'  erfahren 
Wer  dieses  Lied  ersann." 

It  will  be  of  interest  to  see  how  Johanna 
Ambrosius  will  bear  the  popularity  which 
has  so  suddenly  come  to  her  and  the  hon- 
ours which  have  been  so  profusely  show- 
ered upon  her.  She  seems  great  enough 
to  justify  the  hope  that  recognition  will 
bring  out  in  her  the  joyous  rather  than  the 
commonplace. 


Modern  German  Culture         69 


V.— KAROLINE  VON  GUNDERODE 
AND  FRIEDRICH  CREUZER 

September,    1896. 

Prof.  Erwin  Rohde,  the  distinguished 
classical  philologist,  has  done  a  good  ser- 
vice to  students  of  German  civilisation  by 
recently  publishing,  from  manuscripts  pre- 
served in  the  Heidelberg  University  Li- 
brary, the  letters  relating  to  one  of  the 
strangest  and  saddest  episodes  in  the  his- 
tory of  Romanticism — the  love  tragedy 
which  ended  in  the  suicide  of  Karoline  von 
Giinderode.  This  is  a  tragedy  not  only 
full  of  historical  import,  but  also  of  direct 
significance  for  our  own  time.  For  it  re- 
veals moods  and  passions  which  the  ex- 
treme individualism  of  modern  Romanti- 
cists such  as  Nietzsche  and  Ibsen  has  made 
once  more  a  force  in  social  life. 


70  Glimpses  of 

Karoline  von  Giinderode  was  a  worthy 
representative  of  that  brilliant  activity  dis- 
played by  women  in  the  higher  concerns 
of  life  which  gave  to  German  culture  of  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  such 
a  decidedly  feminine  tinge.  If  she  lacked 
the  vivacity  of  her  friend  Bettina  Brentano, 
she  also  lacked  her  coquettishness  and  the- 
atrical mannerism.  If  she  did  not  have  the 
keenness  of  analysis  possessed  by  Rahel 
Varnhagen,  she  was  also  free  from  Rahel's 
bent  for  fantastic  and  hair-splitting  specu- 
lation. And  to  both  Bettina  and  Rahel 
she  was  superior  in  sincerity  of  feeling, 
depth  of  passion,  and  true  womanly  charm. 
She  was  a  genuine  poet,  not  so  much  in 
what  she  wrote  for  the  public  ear  (although 
her  poems  were  admired  even  by  Goethe) 
as  in  her  every-day  thoughts,  her  letters  to 
friends,  her  whole  manner  of  life.  It  is  not 
surprising  that  her  refined  beauty  and  aris- 
tocratic bearing  should  have  attracted  the 


Modern  German  Culture  7 1 

best  men  of  her  time.  Savigny,  the  great 
jurist,  devoted  to  her  years  of  chivalric 
friendship.  Clemens  Brentano,  editor  of 
the  "  Wunderhorn,"  went  into  raptures 
over  her.  No  man,  however,  understood 
her  so  well  or  stirred  her  so  deeply  as  the 
one  who  was  to  lead  her  to  her  own  des- 
truction, namely  Friedrich  Creuzer,  the  fa- 
mous author  of  the  "  Symbolik." 

Creuzer,  also,  is  a  typical  figure  of  the 
period  preceding  the  national  catastrophe 
of  1806,  a  period  which  was  as  devoid  of 
moral  vigour  as  it  was  rich  in  aesthetic  culti- 
vation. As  we  see  him  in  his  public  activ- 
ity, in  his  far-reaching  studies  on  the  re- 
ligion of  the  ancient  Greeks,  in  his  petty 
quarrels  with  scientific  opponents,  he  ap- 
pears as  both  a  pathfinder  and  a  perverter 
of  sound  methods  of  historical  investiga- 
tion; as  a  strange  mixture  of  noble  inspira- 
tions and  selfish  conduct,  of  mystic  intui- 
tion and  scholastic  pedantry;  as  a  priest  of 


72  Glimpses  of 

humanity  and  at  the  same  time  as  a  vain 
professor.  One  must  keep  all  these  con- 
flicting qualities  of  his  in  mind  in  order  to 
understand  how  his  relations  to  Karoline 
von  Giinderode  came  to  be  what  they  were. 
When  Creuzer,  in  the  spring  of  1804,  en- 
tered upon  his  Heidelberg  professorship, 
he  was  thirty-three  years  old;  for  half  a 
decade  he  had  been  united  in  childless  mar- 
riage to  a  widow,  thirteen  years  his  senior. 
Is  it  surprising  that  when,  on  a  beautiful 
August  day  of  the  same  year,  on  the  ter- 
race of  Heidelberg  castle,  he  met  Karoline 
von  Giinderode  for  the  first  time,  he  should 
have  experienced  an  inner  revolution  such 
as  Werther  underwent  when  he  for  the  first 
time  saw  Lotte?  He  feels  at  once  that 
from  now  on  there  are  only  two  possibili- 
ties :  "  Heaven  or  death;  there  is  no  mean 
between  the  two."  He  flies  into  the  soli- 
tude of  the  forests  in  order  to  read  her  let- 
ters, and  when  he  looks  up  to  the  sky  from 


Modern  German  Culture  73 

her  pages,  it  seems  to  him  as  though  he 
were  looking  into  the  eyes  of  his  beloved. 
He  hides  her  poems  on  his  shelves  in  order 
to  enjoy  them  alone  in  the  stillness  of  the 
night.  And  at  last — two  months  after  the 
first  meeting — he  informs  his  wife  "  that  he 
can  no  longer  consider  her  as  his  wife,  in 
fact,  has  never  considered  her  as  such,  but 
that  he  will  forever  cherish  grateful  feel- 
ings towards  her;  "  whereupon  the  wife,  in 
a  fit  of  sudden  magnanimity,  declares  that 
she  approves  of  his  sentiment,  renounces  her 
claims  on  him,  and  desires  to  be  in  future 
nothing  but  an  older  sister  to  him.  In  short, 
it  seems  as  though  the  whole  affair  were 
to  end  in  happy  romantic  fashion :  husband 
and  wife  will  peacefully  separate  and  an- 
other union  be  established.  Or,  to  adopt 
Creuzer's  own  inimitable  phraseology,  the 
wife  will  stay  in  the  house  "  as  mother,  as 
the  manager  of  the  household,"  while  the 
loved  one  will  bring  "freedom  and  poetry" 


74  Glimpses  of 

into  the  husband's  life — exactly  the  same 
situation,  by  the  way,  which  forms  the 
basis  of  the  tragic  conflict  in  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  realistic  dramas  of  our 
own  time,  Gerhart  Hauptmann's  "  Ein- 
same  Menschen." 

In  Creuzer's  and  Karoline's  case,  as  in 
the  modern  drama,  the  serenity  of  those 
paradisiac  dreams  soon  gives  way  to 
gloomy  forebodings.  Sophie,  the  wife,  re- 
tracts her  resignation;  she  is  ready  to  leave 
the  house,  but  in  despair  only,  not  in  good 
part;  she  is  not  willing  to  tolerate  Karoline 
by  her  side.  And  Creuzer,  impulsive  as 
always,  and,  theoretically  at  least,  of  a  chiv- 
alrous frame  of  mind,  realises  at  once  that 
he  must  not  force  his  wife's  actions;  he  is 
unwilling,  in  his  own  words,  "  to  demand  a 
human  sacrifice."  Recognising  his  duty 
towards  his  wife  so  clearly,  one  would 
think  that  he  must  see  with  equal  clearness 
his  duty  towards  Karoline:  a  speedy  and 


Modem  German  Culture  75 

complete  rupture  of  their  relations  seems 
imperative.  But,  far  from  feeling  this, 
Creuzer  is  now  all  the  more  eager  to  re- 
tain Karoline's  love.  He  speaks  with  the 
utmost  disdain  of  the  "  abyss  of  Biirger- 
lichkeit"  which  forbids  a  married  man  to 
think  of  other  women.  He  talks  of  dying 
with  Karoline.  He  beseeches  her  not  to 
abandon  his  "  beautiful  soul."  "  I  am  like 
one  of  those  wooden  Silenus  figures  in 
Plato's  'Symposium'  which,  mean  in  them- 
selves, serve  as  cases  for  beautiful  images 
of  gods  enclosed  in  them.  The  divine  im- 
age encased  in  my  poor  body  is  my  soul, 
which  was  capable  of  feeling  your  worth." 
He  compares  Karoline  to  Raphael's  "  Po- 
esy"; he  glorifies  her  as  the  Virgin  Mary 
hovering  in  eternal  youth  and  freedom 
above  the  clouds: 

"  I  often  appear  to  myself  criminal  in 
wishing  to  draw  you  down  into  this  do- 
mestic world,  when  I  see  how  you,  a  Vir- 


76  Glimpses  of 

gin,  hover  gloriously  in  the  splendour  of 
the  stars,  untouched  by  the  burdens  of 
life.  And  yet,  when  I  think  how  once  it 
was  your  own  will  to  descend  into  this 
world  of  mine,  then  I  rejoice  again  in  the 
consciousness  of  my  courage  to  die  with 
you." 

The  result  of  all  this  reckless  playing 
with  fire  is  another  meeting  of  the  lovers 
at  Frankfort,  Karoline's  residence.  And 
this  meeting,  of  course,  gives  added  vio- 
lence to  the  flame  of  passion.  Karoline 
appears  from  now  on  in  Creuzer's  letters 
mostly  under  symbolic  names,  "  The 
Friend,"  "  The  Saint,"  "  Poesy,"  while  his 
wife,  to  denote  the  hopeless  philistinism  of 
her  character,  receives  the  nickname  "  The 
Good-Natured  One";  and  a  separation 
from  her,  or  rather  lamentations  over  the 
impossibility  of  a  separation  from  her,  be- 
come again  the  burden  of  Creuzer's  talk: 

"  Is  it  right,  or  is  it  cruel,  that  a  woman 


Modern  German  Culture  77 

who  has  lived  through  the  natural  course 
of  her  history  in  the  love  of  her  first  hus- 
band, in  children  who  adore  her,  in  chil- 
dren's children  whom  she  is  looking  for- 
ward to — that  this  woman  should  insist 
that  a  young  man  is  to  find  the  aim  of  his 
life  in  brightening  and  warming  a  little, 
like  a  wintry  sun,  the  late  autumn  and  No- 
vember days  of  her  existence?  It  is  right! 
He  might  have  known  it  in  advance.  Still, 
my  heart,  still !  It  is  right !  Oh,  if  she 
only  could  be  a  little  large-minded — or 
thoroughly  bad  !  But  this  agonising  good- 
nature !  " 

It  is  not  quite  clear  what  ripened  in  So- 
phie for  a  second  time  the  decision  to  give 
way  to  her  favoured  rival.  Enough  that, 
in  September,  1805,  she  took  this  decision: 
she  wrote  to  Karoline  sanctioning  her  re- 
lation with  Creuzer,  and  expressing  the 
hope  that  he  soon  might  be  entirely  hers. 
Creuzer  on  his  part  even  goes  so  far  as  to 


78  Glimpses  of 

address  Karoline  as  his  "  beloved  wife  " ; 
he  speaks  of  the  formal  dissolution  of  his 
marriage  as  soon  to  be  brought  about;  he 
reports  a  plan  to  accept  a  professorship  at 
the  University  of  Moscow  so  as  to  spare 
his  young  bride  the  difficulties  of  living 
with  him  in  the  old  surroundings:  all  the 
clouds  seem  to  be  chased  away,  the  happi- 
ness of  the  lovers  seems  assured.  All  of 
a  sudden  there  is  a  change  in  the  tone  of 
Creuzer's  letters.  He  begins  to  feel  that 
Karoline  is  too  good  for  him,  that  he  does 
not  deserve  her;  he  mentions  financial  diffi- 
culties that  stand  in  the  way  of  a  speedy 
marriage;  he  seems  to  think  that  Karoline 
has  no  natural  taste  for  the  duties  of  a 
housewife;  he  has  heard  a  rumour  that 
Karoline  does  not  intend  to  live  with  him 
as  a  wife,  but  plans  to  accompany  him  to 
Russia  in  men's  clothes  as  a  student  friend; 
he  has  talked  with  his  friend  Savigny  about 
the  matter,  who  has  convinced  him  that  a 


Modern  German  Culture  79 

separation  from  Sophie  would  be  a  moral 
wrong-.  In  brief,  only  two  months  after 
his  wife  has  expressed  her  willingness  to 
release  him,  he  has  practically  broken  off 
with  Karoline;  and  it  is  Karoline,  not  So- 
phie, who  sends  him  the  following  letter  of 
resignation : 

"  My  whole  life  remains  forever  conse- 
crated to  thee,  beloved  sweet  friend.  Nor 
time  nor  circumstances  shall  step  between 
us.  The  loss  of  thy  love  I  should  not  be 
able  to  bear.  Promise  me  never  to  leave 
me.  O  life  of  my  life,  do  not  leave  my 
soul. — See,  I  feel  freer  and  purer  since  I 
have  renounced  all  earthly  hope.  Into  hal- 
lowed melancholy  has  the  violent  grief 
been  dissolved.  Fate  is  conquered.  Thou 
art  mine,  above  all  fate.  Nothing  can  take 
thee  from  me,  since  I  have  won  thee  in 
such  a  manner. — Try  to  gain  Sophie's  con- 
fidence. Tell  her  that  we  have  resigned. 
I,  too  shall  write  her,  in  order  that  peace 


8o  Glimpses  of 

may  be  restored  to  the  household  and  she 
not  disturb  our  relation,  which  has  no 
longer  any  danger  for  her." 

It  seems  incredible  that  Creuzer's  sense 
of  honour  should  not  have  been  sufficient 
to  make  him  respect  the  obligations  laid 
upon  him  by  such  an  appeal  as  this.  In- 
stead of  helping  Karoline  to  live  up  to  her 
noble  renunciation,  instead  of  silencing 
once  for  all  his  own  unruly  longings,  he 
now  more  than  ever  relapses  into  his  ha- 
bitual wavering  between  sentimental  la- 
mentations and  passionate  protestations  of 
love.  On  Christmas  eve  he  feels  in  the 
midst  of  his  family  "  like  a  pilgrim  who, 
on  his  way  to  the  Holy  Land,  has  been 
captured  by  a  people  that  worships  other 
gods."  In  the  Christmas  vacation  he  goes 
on  with  his  "  Symbolik "  in  constant 
thought  of  the  fair  friend  to  whom,  he 
hopes,  this  book  will  be  something  of  a 
compensation  for  all  the  pain  he  has  given 


Modern  German  Culture  81 

her.  In  the  following  April  (1806)  he  vis- 
its her  in  Frankfort,  and  after  his  departure 
he  revels  in  ecstatic  memories  of  their 
meeting  and  in  mournful  complaints  about 
his  present  loneliness :  "  Ah,  nothing  will 
ever  satisfy  me  but  this  dear,  palpable  near- 
ness, from  which  I  now  have  been  torn 
away.  The  present  stares  blankly  at  me: 
back  into  the  joys  of  the  past  my  spirit 
longs  to  turn.  0  sanctissima  virgo,  tecum 
moriar  lib  ens!'  In  June  he  is  in  Mann- 
heim and  is  taken  by  a  friend  to  the  point 
where  the  Neckar  River  flows  into  the 
Rhine.  "  It  is  a  beautiful  place,  and  I  saw 
with  deep  emotion  how  the  two  rivers  em- 
brace each  other.  The  impatient  longing 
with  which  they  hasten  towards  one  an- 
other was  to  me  a  symbol  of  our  life.  Ah, 
the  fortunate  ones,  I  thought,  to  attain 
thus  to  the  goal  of  their  desires !  Sadly  I 
went  away."  And  when,  after  all  these  ap- 
peals   to    the    emotion,    Karoline    indeed 


82  Glimpses  of 

seems  to  lose  her  self-control  and  to  re- 
spond in  the  same  passionate  vein,  how 
does  he  receive  this? 

"  For  heaven's  sake,  Lina,  do  not  aban- 
don yourself  to  such  storms  of  passion !  I 
have  burnt  all  that  you  wrote  to-day,  pray- 
ing- for  your  tranquility  of  mind  while  the 
flames  were  consuming  your  pages. — Be- 
loved, I  owe  you  a  large  debt,  a  debt  equal 
to  the  value  of  my  own  life;  but  quiet  you 
owe  to  me,  and  you  will  give  me  quiet 
when  you  see  that  you  owe  it  to  yourself." 

We  hasten  to  the  end.  On  June  29  or 
30  a  last  meeting  of  the  lovers  took  place. 
With  what  feelings  they  saw  each  other,  in 
what  a  frame  of  mind  they  separated,  we 
are  unable  to  tell.  Immediately  after  it 
Creuzer  fell  into  a  violent  fever.  During 
his  sickness  his  friends  prevailed  upon  him 
to  make  a  solemn  declaration  that  he  would 
completely  and  irrevocably  break  off  his 
relations    with    Karoline.     One    of    these 


Modern  German  Culture  83 

friends  took  it  upon  himself  to  inform 
Karoline  of  this  decision.  In  order  to 
break  the  cruel  news  to  her  in  as  gentle  a 
manner  as  possible,  the  letter  containing 
it  was  addressed  to  a  friend  of  Karoline's 
with  whom  she  was  at  the  time  sojourning. 
These  measures  of  precaution  were  frus- 
trated. Karoline,  who  for  weeks  had  been 
waiting  for  a  letter  from  Creuzer,  hastened 
to  meet  the  messenger,  took  the  letter,  op- 
ened it  in  her  room,  and  read — her  death- 
warrant.  She  soon  came  back  from  her 
room,  apparently  undisturbed,  took  leave 
of  her  friend  for  a  short  evening  walk 
such  as  she  was  in  the  habit  of  taking,  but 
did  not  return.  On  the  next  morning  her 
body  was  found  on  the  banks  of  the  Rhine. 
She  had  stabbed  herself  with  the  dagger 
which  for  some  time  previous  she  had  been 
carrying  about  her. 

Two  months  after  the  death  of  Karoline 
von    Giinderode   the    battle    of   Jena    was 


84  Glimpses  of 

fought.  Little  as  these  events  seem  to  have 
in  common  with  each  other,  it  is  yet  true 
that  the  battle  of  Jena  exerted  a  profound 
influence  on  the  whole  moral  and  intellect- 
ual atmosphere  which  determined  the 
tragic  fate  of  the  romantic  poetess.  In  the 
national  breakdown,  in  the  utter  ruin  of  its 
political  existence,  the  German  people  re- 
covered its  sense  of  moral  dignity  and  dis- 
cipline which  had  been  obscured  by  the 
flighty  conceptions  of  an  exclusively  aes- 
thetic culture;  and  the  Creuzers  and  Gun- 
derodes  were  superseded  by  the  Steins  and 
the  Fichtes. 


Modern  German  Culture  85 


VI.— HAUPTMANN'S    "THE    SUNK- 
EN BELL" 

April,    1897. 

Rarely  has  the  mysterious  affinity  be- 
tween the  extremes  of  realism  and  roman- 
ticism been  illustrated  as  strikingly  as  now 
in  the  gradual  unfolding  of  Gerhart  Haupt- 
mann's  poetic  genius.  Hauptmann  is  one 
of  those  fascinating  men  whose  character 
seems  to  baffle  all  attempts  at  rational 
analysis.  He  is  at  the  same  time  the  most 
modern  of  the  moderns  and  the  most  de- 
vout worshipper  of  the  traditions  of  the 
past,  an  iconoclast  and  a  dreamer,  a  pan- 
theist and  an  inspired  interpreter  of  me- 
diaeval Christianity,  a  socialist  and  an  up- 
holder of  personal  freedom,  an  impression- 
ist  painter  of  the  most  uncompromising 


86  Glimpses  of 

kind  and  a  lyric  poet  of  the  deepest  feeling 
and  the  most  delicate  sensibility.  At  times 
he  speaks  as  though  he  saw  before  him  a 
new  age  of  exalted  humanity,  as  though  he 
would  lead  his  people  forward  on  the  path 
of  liberty  and  spiritual  progress;  and  then 
again  he  seems  like  a  child  lost  in  the 
wilderness  of  an  outworn  civilisation,  he 
flees  from  the  shallow  brilliancy  of  modern 
society  to  the  primitive  sturdiness  of  the 
fairy  tale,  and,  in  the  midst  of  a  career  full 
of  restless  striving  and  ambition,  he  dreams 
himself  back  to  the  sombre  seclusion  of  his 
Silesian  mountain  home.  He  is  crude  and 
refined,  heavy  and  graceful,  pessimistic  and 
buoyant,  flippant  and  sublime;  and  in  all 
these  changes  he  is  always  and  unfailingly 
true  to  himself. 

He  began  with  lurid  scenes  from  con- 
temporary life,  in  which  it  was  easy  to 
detect  the  influence  of  Ibsen  and  Zola. 
But  even  in  the  atrocious  vulgarity  of  "Vor 


Modern  German  Culture         87 

Sonnenaufgang "  and  in  the  hopeless 
gloom  of  "  Das  Friedensfest "  there  ap- 
peared a  strain  quite  foreign  alike  to  the 
cynic  bitterness  of  the  Norwegian  and  to 
the  proletarian  ferociousness  of  the  French- 
man :  a  deep,  silent  craving  for  purity  and 
childlike  innocence.  Next,  there  followed 
"  Einsame  Menschen,"  a  masterpiece  of 
psychological  analysis,  vibrating  with  the 
profoundest  chords  of  modern  thought, 
bringing  out  in  figures  of  wonderful  life- 
likeness  the  tragedy  of  moral  emancipation 
unaided  by  moral  greatness.  Then  came 
"  Die  Weber,"  a  modern  Dance  of  Death, 
a  cry  of  sympathy  with  suffering  humanity 
as  genuine  and  heart-stirring  as  any  word 
of  lamentation  or  scorn  uttered  by  the 
prophets  of  old.  Then  a  strange  pair  of 
unlike  brothers :  "  Der  Biberpelz,"  a  gross 
satire  of  the  Prussian  police  officer  in 
search  for  crimes  of  lese-majesty,  and 
"  Hannele,"  a  glorification  of  the  spiritual- 


88  Glimpses  of 

istic  elements  of  the  Christian  belief.  Then 
the  historical  drama,  "  Florian  Geyer,"  a 
work  both  grand  and  ordinary,  irresistible 
and  intolerable,  a  most  faithful — perhaps 
too  faithful — reproduction  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  with  its  democratic  aspirations,  its 
reformatory  zeal,  its  popular  heroism,  fa- 
naticism, and  savagery,  but  somehow  lack- 
ing in  the  finer  human  emotions.  And 
now,  finally,  "  Die  versunkene  Glocke,"  a 
fantastic  vision,  transporting  us  into  lonely 
forests  haunted  by  elfs  and  water-sprites, 
and  strangely  illumined  by  the  flicker  of 
swarming  glow-worms. 

It  is  almost  impossible  to  give  an  ade- 
quate conception  of  this  "  fairy  drama " 
which  now  for  months  has  been  delighting 
Berlin  audiences.  The  time  of  the  action 
is  somewhere  in  the  Middle  Ages.  The 
principal  character  is  a  figure  belonging  to 
the  race  of  Faust,  Manfred,  and  Brand: 
Meister  Heinrich,  a  bellfounder  in  a  lonely 


Modern  German  Culture  89 

village  of  the  Riesengebirge.  It  is  evi- 
dently not  long  since  Christianity  made  its 
way  into  these  remote  regions,  for  we  hear 
that  the  mountain  elfs  are  disgusted  with 
the  unaccustomed  sight  of  church-building 
going  on  in  the  midst  of  their  retreats,  and 
still  more  with  the  unaccustomed  sound  of 
the  church  bells  ringing  through  the  peace 
of  the  forests.  Just  now  one  of  these  ma- 
licious spirits  has  seized  the  opportunity  of 
venting  his  spite.  He  has  lain  in  wait  when 
a  bell  wrought  by  Master  Henry  and  des- 
tined for  a  chapel  on  the  mountain  summit 
was  being  carted  up  the  hill;  he  has  broken 
the  wheel  of  the  truck,  and  has  hurled  the 
bell  and  its  maker  down  into  the  lake. 
Here  is  the  beginning  of  the  action.  Hen- 
ry, rallying,  but  as  yet  hardly  conscious  of 
his  steps,  gropes  his  way  upward  again, 
and  wanders  about  in  aimless  despair 
through  the  rocky  wilderness.  Finally  he 
sinks  down  exhausted.     His  cries  of  agony 


90  Glimpses  of 

have  been  overheard  by  Rautendelein,  a 
strange  mixture  of  elf  and  maiden;  and  for 
the  first  time  there  has  been  awakened  in 
her  breast  the  dim  feeling  of  a  higher  life 
and  the  blind  desire  to  win  it.  So,  when 
the  villagers  come  to  carry  Henry's  nearly 
lifeless  body  back  to  the  valley,  Rautende- 
lein follows  them,  determined  to  see  and 
to  know  "  the  land  of  men."  Dis- 
guised as  a  servant,  she  enters  the  house 
where  Henry,  attended  by  his  faithful  wife, 
lies  at  the  point  of  death.  He  is  delirious. 
His  life  seems  to  him  a  failure;  the  comfort- 
ing words  of  his  wife  sound  to  him  like 
mockery;  he  persuades  himself  that  she  has 
no  conception  of  what  it  is  to  feel  the  cre- 
ative impulse  and  to  have  it  checked  by 
brutal  fate;  he  is  sure  that  she  does  not 
understand  him,  that  nobody  understands 
him;  he  curses  his  work;  he  wishes  to  die. 
At  this  moment  Rautendelein  appears,  and 
the   sight   of  this  unbroken   youthful   life 


Modern  German  Culture  91 

brings  back  to  him  his  own  youthful  aspi- 
rations. It  is  as  though  Nature  herself 
had  touched  him  and  renewed  his  strength, 
as  though  she  beckoned  him  to  throw  away 
the  commonplace  cares  and  duties  of  ordi- 
nary social  existence  and  to  follow  her  to 
the  heights  of  a  free,  unfettered,  creative 
activity.  He  cannot  resist.  The  supreme 
desire  for  unhampered  exercise  of  his  facul- 
ties restores  his  health;  the  delirious  des- 
pondency leaves  him;  he  is  himself  again. 
When  the  scene  changes,  Rautendelein 
has  led  him  back  into  the  mountains.  She 
now  appears  as  his  inspiring  genius.  He 
is  in  the  fulness  of  his  powers;  he  is  raised 
above  the  petty  conflict  of  good  and  evil. 
He  has  won  control  over  the  spirits  that 
dwell  in  rock  and  cavern;  with  their  help 
he  is  creating  a  wonder  work  of  art,  a 
temple  structure  on  highest  mountain 
peak  whose  melodious  chime  is  to  call  free 
humanity  to  the  festival  of  universal  broth- 


92  Glimpses  of 

erhood.  Wrapt  up  in  these  estatic  visions 
he  has  entirely  lost  sight  of  his  former  life. 
He  seems  not  to  know  that  once  he  had 
a  loving  wife  and  children.  He  scorns  the 
friendly  warning  of  the  village  priest,  who 
ventures  into  his  enchanted  wilderness  in 
order  to  save  his  soul.  He  defies  the  on- 
slaught of  the  peasants  who  attempt  to 
storm  his  fastness  in  order  to  annihilate  the 
godless  blasphemer.  He  quiets  occasional 
pangs  of  conscience  by  renewed  feverish 
work;  only  at  night  he  lies  restless  and  is 
visited  by  fearful  dreams.  More  and  more, 
however,  these  evil  forebodings  get  the 
better  of  him.  Again  and  again  he  hears 
a  strange  sound  that  seems  to  draw  him 
downward,  he  recognises  in  it  the  tolling 
of  the  bell  that  lies  at  the  bottom  of  the 
mountain  lake.  What  causes  the  bell  to 
give  the  sound?  Who  is  that  pale,  ghastly 
figure  floating  toward  it  and  striking  its 
tongue?      And    who    are    these    shadowy 


Modern  German  Culture  93 

forms  of  little  children,  coming  slowly  and 
sadly  toward  him,  and  carrying  with  great 
effort  a  heavily  rilled  urn?  Breathless  with 
horror,  he  addresses  them.  "  What  carry 
ye?  "  "  Father,  we  carry  an  urn."  "  What 
is  in  the  urn?"  "Father,  something  bit- 
ter." "  What  is  the  something  bitter?  " 
"  Father,  our  mother's  tears."  "  Where  is 
your  mother?  "  "  Where  the  water-lilies 
grow." 

Now,  at  last,  Henry  sees  that  he  has 
overstepped  the  bounds  set  to  man.  The 
whole  wretchedness  of  his  imagined  gran- 
deur is  revealed  to  him  with  terrible  clear- 
ness. He  drives  Rautendelein  away  with 
calumny  and  cursing.  He  destroys  with 
his  own  hand  the  work  which  had  been  to 
him  the  symbol  of  a  perfect  humanity.  He 
resolves  to  descend  again  to  the  fellowship 
of  mortals.  But  it  is  too  late.  The  super- 
human striving  has  consumed  his  strength. 
In  his  last  moment  Rautendelein  appears 


94  Glimpses  of 

to  him  once  more;  she  has  returned  into 
her  own  realm,  she  has  become  the  wife  of 
an  ugly  old  water-sprite  who  had  wooed 
her  for  years.  But  she  is  still  longing  for 
human  affections,  and  she  presses  a  fervent 
kiss  upon  the  lips  of  the  dying  one. 

The  drama  thus  hastily  outlined  is  to  us 
a  messenger  of  good  tidings.  It  is  a 
fresh  evidence  of  a  fact  which  has  recently 
become  manifest  in  more  ways  than  one: 
the  fact  that  Germany  is  preparing  again  to 
take  a  leading  part  in  the  literature  of  the 
world.  Especially  the  German  realistic 
drama  of  the  last  decade  has  shown  a  fer- 
tility of  motives  and  a  constructive  energy 
far  superior  to  that  of  recent  dramatic  pro- 
ductions in  England  or  France.  But  most 
of  these  realistic  dramas  are  in  too  pro- 
nounced a  manner  children  of  the  age  to 
have  a  long  life  before  them;  they  are 
clever  dramatic  essays  rather  on  social,  re- 
ligious, or  philosophical  questions  of  imme- 


Modern  German  Culture  95 

diate  and  acute  interest  than  works  of  art 
which  permanently  satisfy.  In  "  Die  ver- 
sunkene  Glocke  "  for  the  first  time  we  hear 
once  more  the  unmistakable  ring  of  the 
universally  human.  Here  we  are  made  to 
feel  once  more  the  eternal  longing  of  the 
human  heart  for  a  happiness  that  lies  be- 
yond the  things  seen  or  heard.  Here  we 
are  brought  face  to  face  once  more  with 
an  ideal  striving  far  transcending  all  inter- 
est in  so-called  questions  of  the  day.  Here 
we  are  indeed  reminded  of  the  artistic  tem- 
per which  created  the  type  of  Faust. 

To  be  sure,  the  form  of  this  drama  is 
too  fantastic  to  appeal  to  all  persons  or  to 
all  times.  It  needs  a  special  frame  of  mind 
to  find  out  the  instinctive  striving  after  na- 
ture which  underlies  even  its  grotesque  ar- 
tificialities. German  critics  have  with  good 
reason  pointed  out  the  affinity  between  this 
drama  and  the  paintings  of  Boecklin. 
Hauptmann  and  Boecklin  belong,  indeed, 


96  Glimpses  of 

together.  Both  are  endowed  with  an  ex- 
traordinary sensibility,  both  feel  an  irre- 
pressible desire  to  reproduce  the  sounds 
and  sights  of  nature  exactly  as  they  hear 
and  see  them.  But  both  hear  and  see  not 
only  the  sounds  and  sights  of  nature,  they 
are  equally  strongly  affected  by  the  dis- 
cordant impressions  of  their  social  environ- 
ment; and  in  order  not  to  be  disturbed  by 
these,  they  strain  their  receptive  organs  to 
such  an  extent  that  the  water  looks  bluer 
to  them  than  it  does  to  the  normal  eye, 
and  the  wind  roars  more  wildly  to  them 
than  it  does  to  the  normal  ear.  This  is 
especially  true  of  "Die  versunkene  Glocke." 
There  is  a  note  of  exaggeration  in  it  which 
takes  away  from  its  sincerity.  And  de- 
lightful as  this  company  of  roving,  rollick- 
ing, swaggering,  half  malicious,  half  good- 
natured  earth-spirits  is  which  forms  the  ele- 
mental background  of  the  dramatic  action, 
we  are  hardly  more   than   amused  by  it. 


Modern  German  Culture  97 

The  true  simplicity  of  the  fairy  tale  is  for 
the  most  part  absent. 

But  this  objection  does  not  touch  the 
central  conception  of  the  drama.  Haupt- 
mann  has  created  a  work  which  treats  the 
old  Faust  theme  of  man's  superhuman  as- 
pirations in  a  new  and  fascinating  manner. 
We  may  confidently  hope  that  his  youth- 
ful genius,  which  has  given  us  so  much  al- 
ready that  is  fine  and  true,  will  give  us 
something  still  finer  and  truer.  He  is  now 
approaching  his  full  maturity.  May  he 
live  himself  out  completely  and  harmoni- 
ously. May  he  go  on,  undisturbed  by 
fame  or  slander,  unmoved  by  the  wrangle 
between  literary  cliques,  unmindful  of  the 
meaningless  war-cries  of  romanticism  and 
classicism,  to  bring  forth  what  is  in  him. 
If  he  does  this,  he  seems  destined  to  ac- 
complish what  his  Meister  Heinrich  strove 
for  in  vain :  to  build  a  temple  of  art  in 
which  all  ages  and  all  nations  may  wor- 
ship. 


98  Glimpses  of 


VII.— HERMAN  GRIMM 
May,   1897. 

Since  the  days  of  Tieck  and  the  brothers 
Schlegel,  Germany  has  produced  no  man 
of  letters  who  in  universality  of  interests 
and  refinement  of  taste  can  be  compared  to 
Herman  Grimm.  There  is  no  dearth  of 
critics  who  within  the  limits  of  their  special 
studies  have  accomplished  as  much  or  per- 
haps even  more  than  he.  In  philosophic 
grasp  of  abstract  intellectual  problems, 
men  like  Kuno  Fischer  or  Rudolf  Haym 
are  his  superiors.  In  questions  touching 
the  technical  workmanship  displayed  in 
works  of  painting  or  sculpture,  his  judg- 
ments have  not  infrequently  been  over- 
ridden by  the  verdict  of  more  thoroughly 
trained  experts.     In  the  sphere  of  philo- 


Modern  German  Culture  99 

logical  text  criticism,  the  chosen  province 
of  nearly  all  the  younger  literary  historians, 
he  has  never  felt  quite  at  home.  What  dis- 
tinguishes Herman  Grimm  from  all  other 
German  scholars  of  to-day,  what  gives  him 
his  unique  position  in  modern  life,  is  the 
fact  that  he  is  philosopher,  art  critic,  and 
literary  historian  in  one,  that  he  is  an  in- 
terpreter of  the  spiritual  ideals  of  mankind, 
whatever  form  they  may  have  assumed  or 
to  whatever  age  they  may  belong.  He  is, 
among  living  Germans,  the  most  eminent 
advocate  of  aesthetic  culture;  the  principal, 
if  not  sole,  upholder  of  the  classic  tradition 
of  Weimar  and  Jena;  the  chosen  apostle  of 
that  striving  for  completeness  of  person- 
ality without  which  all  special  activity  must 
of  necessity  fail  to  reach  out  into  the  high- 
est sphere  of  human  aspirations. 

When  men  of  marked  originality  deline- 
ate the  character  of  other  men,  they  at  the 
same  time  bring  before  us  their  own  fea- 


ioo  Glimpses  of 

tures.  Herman  Grimm's  writings,  there- 
fore, although  they  are  almost  wholly  de- 
voted to  the  study  of  the  works  and  lives 
of  other  writers  and  artists,  at  the  same 
time  give  us  a  remarkably  striking  picture 
of  himself.  And  it  would  be  difficult  to 
state  more  truthfully  and  simply  the  very 
essence  of  his  individuality  than  by  repeat- 
ing what  he  has  said  of  two  men  whose 
intellectual  kinship  with  his  own  nature  he 
has  often  acknowledged :  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson  and  Ernst  Curtius.  This  is  his 
characterisation  of  the  American  thinker: 

"  Emerson  nowhere  lays  down  a  system. 
It  seems  as  though  he  were  simply  acting 
under  the  impulse  of  the  moment  to  speak 
out  what  happens  to  be  uppermost  in  his 
mind.  But  if  one  takes  together  all  that 
he  has  thus  said  in  the  course  of  a  long  life, 
the  numerous  individual  parts  are  seen  to 
group  themselves  into  a  well  rounded,  har- 
monious   whole.     He    is    imbued    with    a 


Modern  German  Culture         101 

wonderful  divination  of  the  relationship  of 
all  moral  phenomena.  From  the  very  first 
he  feels  what  place  belongs  to  each.  Con- 
fusion becomes  order  before  his  glance. 
He  expresses  himself  without  any  special 
exertion.  Effortless  and  gently,  as  Na- 
ture herself  seems  to  work  even  where  the 
most  terrible  happens,  his  sentences  chain 
themselves  to  each  other,  link  by  link.  He 
never  is  out  of  breath;  step  by  step  he  leads 
us  from  one  thought  to  another.  Always 
he  simply  speaks  his  mind,  and  utterances 
which  at  first  seem  strange  soon  come  to 
sound  natural  and  necessary,  if  one  confi- 
dently tries  to  enter  into  their  meaning." 

And  these  are  the  words  which  less  than 
a  year  ago  the  death  of  his  friend  Ernst 
Curtius  wrung  from  his  lips : 

"  Curtius  had  something  inward  in  his 
manner.  In  speaking  with  him,  you  often 
remained  so  long  without  an  answer  that 
you  might  think  he  had  not  heard  you  or 


102  Glimpses  of 

not  even  listened.  Then,  as  if  awakening, 
he  would  give  the  answer.  In  general, 
there  was  something  silent  in  him,  and  yet 
he  found  the  greatest  enjoyment  and  recre- 
ation in  conversing  and  talking.  He  had 
seen  and  experienced  much,  and  he  spoke 
of  it  as  though  he  were  gathering  old  rec- 
ollections for  himself.  He  gladly  pointed 
things  out  and  explained,  and  always  in  a 
tone  as  though  it  was  self-evident  that  his 
opinion  was  the  only  true  one,  that  his  in- 
sight was  the  higher  one.  There  was 
something  festal  in  his  words  and  his  bear- 
ing. He  walked  quick  and  free  and  joyful, 
as  though  encompassed  by  great  thoughts. 
If  one  spoke  to  him  on  the  street,  he  would 
seem  surprised,  and  at  his  friends  even  he 
would  look  as  though  he  recognised  them 
only  just  now  and  were  just  seeing  them 
again  after  a  long  separation.  The  youth- 
fulness  of  his  nature  was  indestructible. 
Even  in  his  last  days  he  walked  about  like 


Modern  German  Culture         103 

one  of  the  Olympians  who  know  nothing 
of  death." 

Here  we  have  both  the  intellectual  and 
the  emotional  side  of  Herman  Grimm's 
own  character  clearly  brought  before  us. 
Like  Emerson,  he  disdains  to  bind  himself  " 
to  a  strict  philosophical  system;  he  never 
attempts  to  formulate  a  general  law  of  ar- 
tistic or  literary  development;  and  yet,  in 
analysing  and  interpreting  the  great  works 
of  the  world's  literature  and  art,  he  always 
makes  us  feel  that  they  are  necessary  mani- 
festations of  a  deep,  mysterious  force  which 
regulates  all  human  life.  Like  Curtius,  he  ., 
is  essentially  a  lyric  nature;  what  appeals  to 
him  in  a  statue  or  a  poem  is  the  inner  vis- 
ion rather  than  the  outward  form;  what 
attracts  him  in  an  artist  or  a  poet  is  what 
they  have  to  say  rather  than  how  they  say 
it.  Like  both  Emerson  and  Curtius,  he 
feels  truly  at  home  only  in  the  calm  world 
of  ideas.     With  the  present  age  and  its 


104  Glimpses  of 

noisy,  breathless  activity  he  has  little  in 
common.  He  would  flee  away  from  what 
he  has  called  "  the  deep,  inward  unrest  of 
the  moderns,  which,  at  its  climax  to-day, 
drives  us  to  despair." 

With  all  this  Herman  Grimm  is  not  a 
Romanticist  of  the  Ruskinian  type.  His 
abhorrence  of  commonplace  reality  does 
not  make  him  flee  into  the  region  of  the 
fantastic.  From  nothing  is  he  further  re- 
moved than  from  the  worship  of  the  abnor- 
mal. On  the  contrary,  if  there  is  anything 
that  stands  out  as  the  central  thought  of 
his  writings,  it  is  the  conviction  that  the 
true  leaders  of  mankind  are  only  those 
men  who  have  given  expression  to  the  uni- 
versally human,  who  are  intelligible  to  all 
ages  and  all  races,  who  appeal  to  the  simp- 
lest and  most  fundamental  of  feelings.  And 
although  the  range  of  his  vision  is  well- 
nigh  limitless,  although  he  is  able  to  sym- 
pathise with  the   most   different  types  of 


Modern  German  Culture         105 

character,  with  Erasmus  and  Diirer,  with 
Saraceni  and  Carstens,  with  Shakspere 
and  Voltaire,  with  Overbeck  and  Boecklin, 
yet  the  true  object  of  his  whole  literary  ac- 
tivity is  to  rivet  the  eyes  of  the  modern 
world  upon  those  eternal  heights  where 
stand  the  ideal  figures  of  a  harmonious  hu- 
manity— a  Homer,  a  Dante,  a  Raphael,  a 
Goethe. 

What  is  Grimm's  attitude  toward  these 
greatest  of  men? 

Until  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury all  literature  and  art  was  looked  upon 
merely  as  the  creation  of  a  few  isolated 
individuals.  Herder,  Winckelmann,  and 
the  Romanticists  have  taught  us  to  under- 
stand these  few  great  individuals  as  pro- 
ducts of  the  physical,  social,  and  mental 
conditions  of  the  masses  from  whom  they 
sprang,  as  spokesmen  of  their  time,  as  rep- 
resentatives of  wide-spread  intellectual 
movements;  and  the  works  of  these  men 


106  Glimpses  of 

they  have  taught  us  to  view  less  as  pro- 
ceeding from  the  conscious  effort  of  pri- 
vate individuals  than  as  born  from  the  in- 
stinctive longing's  of  the  national  spirit. 
Herman  Grimm  has  by  no  means  thrown 
away  the  invaluable  insight  gained  by  Her- 
der and  his  followers.  He  would  not  have 
been  a  faithful  keeper  of  the  inheritance  be- 
queathed to  him  by  his  father  and  his  uncle, 
Wilhelm  and  Jacob  Grimm,  if  he  had  not 
adhered  to  their  belief  in  the  inseparable 
union  of  national  instincts  and  social  cur- 
rents with  individual  endeavour.  Indeed, 
whatever  may  be  said  from  the  merely  tech- 
nical point  of  view  against  his  first  great 
book,  the  "Life  of  Michael  Angelo,"  it 
would  be  preposterous  to  deny  that  here 
we  have  one  of  the  few  biographies  of  the 
world's  literature  which  show  us  a  man  in 
the  very  centre  of  the  conflicting  tenden- 
cies of  his  time,  or  which  bring  out  the  very 
essence  of  a  given  age  in  the  experiences 


Modern  German  Culture         107 

and  aspirations  of  an  individual  life.  And 
not  even  Taine  could  have  expressed  more 
tersely  the  overwhelming  influence  which 
the  milieu  exerts  upon  personality  than 
these  words  from  Grimm's  essay  on  Carlo 
Saraceni : 

"  It  would  be  a  mistake  to  speak  of  the 
inevitable  decline  of  Italian  art  after  the 
death  of  Leonardo,  Raphael,  Correggio, 
Michael  Angelo,  and  Titian,  in  the  sense 
as  though  in  these  five  men  Art  had  ex- 
hausted herself.  Who  will  say  that  the 
creative  power  of  nature  is  limited  to  the 
production  of  a  certain  number  of  great 
men?  If  we  nevertheless  speak  of  the  inev- 
itable decline  of  Italian  art  at  that  time, 
we  mean  by  it  that,  if  in  those  days  a  genius 
had  been  born,  as  it  well  might  have  been, 
it  would  not  have  been  able  to  unfold  itself, 
because  the  force  of  circumstances  would 
not  have  permitted  it." 

Yet  this  very  affinity  between  Grimm  and 


108  Glimpses  of 

Taine  in  philosophic  doctrine  brings  out  all 
the  more  clearly  the  contrast  between 
Grimm  and  Taine  in  philosophic  temper. 
Taine  thinks  as  a  scientist;  Grimm  thinks 
as  an  artist.  For  Taine  the  general  move- 
ment is  of  prime  importance;  Grimm  lays 
the  chief  emphasis  upon  the  individual  who 
represents  the  general  movement.  Taine 
is  greater  in  analysing  men  who  seem  to 
have  been  nothing  but  tools  of  the  intel- 
lectual or  moral  development  of  mankind, 
whose  strength  seems  to  have  been  ab- 
sorbed by  living  out  a  certain  phase  of  the 
world's  history;  Grimm  is  greater  in  depict- 
ing men  who  seem  to  stand  by  themselves, 
who  seem  to  have  taken  rescue  from  the 
whirlpool  of  circumstance  and  fate  into  the 
serene  regions  of  personal  freedom. 

Two  types  of  these  greatest  of  men  are 
Grimm's  particular  favourites.  The  first 
type  is  represented  by  Michael  Angelo  and 
Goethe.     Men  like  them  take  hold  of  life 


Modern  German  Culture         109 

in  all  its  varied  relations;  they  are  of  the 
world;  they  try  themselves  in  the  most  dif- 
ferent fields  of  activity;  they  might  equally 
well  be  statesmen,  conquerors,  artists,  or 
philosophers;  they  show  the  impress  of  a 
continual  grappling  with  new  problems;  it 
is  impossible  to  understand  their  works 
without  a  full  knowledge  of  their  lives;  the 
artist  in  them,  however  great,  is  yet  of  less 
significance  to  us  than  the  man.  The  sec- 
ond type  is  that  of  men  who,  however 
stormy  their  existence  in  reality  may  be, 
as  artists  seem  to  be  wholly  independent  of 
earthly  vicissitudes.  They  are  men  who 
"  aspire  to  belong  to  themselves  in  order  to 
give  form  to  what  fills  their  imagination." 
They  hardly  seem  to  touch  the  ground; 
their  spirits  dwell  above  the  earth,  and  their 
works,  having  been  conceived  in  those 
higher  regions  "  where  the  pure  forms 
live,"  have  something  impersonal,  one 
might  say  angelic,  in  them.  Such  men 
were  Schiller  and  Raphael. 


1 10  Glimpses  of 

Which  of  these  types  Herman  Grimm 
values  most  it  would  be  hard  to  say.  Al- 
though he  has  treated  most  fully  the  two 
men  belonging  to  the  former  class,  Michael 
Angelo  and  Goethe,  one  might  almost  feel 
inclined  to  infer  from  the  peculiarly  deep 
and  mellow  tone  which  pervades  his  "  Life 
of  Raphael,"  that  his  heart  beats  still  more 
strongly  for  men  of  the  latter  stamp.  And 
it  seems  as  though  we  had  a  right  to  hope 
that  he  will  be  spared  to  give  us  an  equally 
fine  characterisation,  and  one  as  deeply  felt, 
of  the  great  German  idealist,  of  Schiller. 
More  than  any  other  living  man  does 
Grimm  seem  predestined  to  bring  the 
artist  Schiller  within  the  reach  of  modern 
feeling.  For  no  other  living  man  has  the 
same  wonderful  faculty  of  creating  Stim- 
immg  which  he  himself  ascribes  to  Em- 
erson : 

"  As  the  night-wind  passing  through  the 
woods  and  over  the  meadows  comes  to  us 


Modern  German  Culture        1 1 1 

laden  with  the  sweet  breath  of  trees  and 
grasses  and  flowers  which  we  have  not  seen, 
so  he  surrounds  us  with  the  atmosphere  of 
things  as  if  they  were  in  reality  near  us." 

Herman  Grimm  is  something  vastly 
more  than  a  mere  analyser  and  interpreter 
of  other  men's  works.  He  is  a  creative 
artist;  he  is  a  portrait  painter  of  consum- 
mate skill  and  refinement.  And  he  is  more 
than  a  portrait  painter;  he  is  equally  ex- 
quisite in  the  landscape,  in  still  life,  even  in 
heroic  scenes.  He  possesses  that  delicate 
receptivity  which  enables  the  true  artist 
to  hear  and  see  where  other  men  are  blind. 
He  has  the  magic  gift  of  making  all  things 
seem  animate.  By  a  word,  by  a  mere  in- 
terjection he  transports  his  reader  to  the 
remotest  times  and  lands;  the  strangest 
sights  he  makes  familiar;  he  gives  us  a 
sense  of  being  at  home  with  the  mighty 
shades  of  history.  He  is,  in  short,  a  repro- 
ductive genius  such  as  there  have  been  very 


1 1 2  Glimpses  of 

few  in  any  age  and  among  any  people;  and 
his  writings  will  be  reckoned  in  times  to 
come  with  the  finest  productions  of  that 
wonderful  epoch  of  poetry  of  which  he  and 
Paul  Heyse  are  perhaps  the  last  afterglow. 


Modern  German  Culture        1 1 3 


VIII.— IMPRESSIONS    OF   INDUS- 
TRIAL AND  PATRIARCHAL 
GERMANY 

August,    1897. 

What  in  contemporary  Germany  most 
forcibly  strikes  one  who  has  been  out  of  its 
reach  for  some  time  is  its  intense  modern- 
ness.  It  seems  as  though  within  twenty- 
five  years  the  country  had  completely 
changed  its  moral  complexion,  as  though 
it  had  leaped  at  a  bound  from  a  compara- 
tively patriarchal  condition  into  the  very 
midst  of  modern  capitalism  and  industrial- 
ism. That  the  very  rapidity  of  this  devel- 
opment has  destroyed  a  good  deal  of  what 
constituted  the  principal  charm  of  German 
life  in  the  time  of  our  fathers,  it  would  be 
idle  to  deny.     The  average  German  of  to- 


H4  Glimpses  of 

day,  at  least  if  he  be  selected  from  the  high- 
er classes,  is  not  any  more  the  youthful  en- 
thusiast and  idealist  of  the  old  liberal  type; 
he  is  rather  a  shrewd  observer  and  a  cool- 
headed  manager  of  affairs,  who  despises  the 
Greeks  for  having  gone  to  war  without 
having  provided  themselves  with  the  nec- 
essary wherewithal.  And  the  average  Ger- 
man home  of  the  same  stratum  of  society, 
far  from  being  distinguished  for  its  sim- 
plicity and  frugality,  is  rather  marked  by 
a  degree  of  high  living  and  display  that 
would  have  astounded  the  contemporaries 
of  Freiligrath  and  Platen.  Whatever  one 
may  think  of  the  present  Emperor,  he  cer- 
tainly is  an  adequate  representative  of  an 
age  full  of  restless  ambition,  overflowing 
with  vitality,  seeking  new  avenues  of  ac- 
tivity in  every  direction,  luxurious,  revel- 
ling in  success  and  enjoyment,  but  some- 
how lacking  in  the  finer  aspirations  and 
feelings.     And  no  truer  artistic  index  of 


Modern  German  Culture        1 1 5 

this  newest  phase  of  German  life  could 
have  been  found  than  the  gorgeous  monu- 
ment which,  by  his  Majesty's  decree,  has 
been  erected  in  front  of  the  austere  old 
Hohenzollern  castle  in  memory  of  Em- 
peror William  I — the  "  Wilhelm  in  der 
Lowengrube,"  as  Berlin  popular  humour 
has  dubbed  it,  on  account  of  the  roaring 
lions  that  surround  the  equestrian  statue 
of  the  Emperor  himself — a  work  so  pom- 
pous and  supercilious  that  one  rubs  one's 
eyes  to  realise  that  this  is  meant  to  be  the 
simple,  good  old  man  whose  sole  ambition 
it  was  to  perform  his  daily  duty  well. 

Fortunately  signs  are  not  lacking  that  all 
this  outward  display  has  not  yet  deeply  af- 
fected the  nation  as  a  whole,  so  that,  as  it 
has  been  the  result  of  the  sudden  accumu- 
lation of  wealth  it  will  pass  away  with  the 
gradual  absorption  of  this  wealth  by  the 
masses.  For  alongside  of  the  great  indus- 
trial and  commercial  prosperity  there  has 


1 1 6  Glimpses  of 

come  an  intellectual  awakening  also  which, 
although  it  has  not  had  the  same  outward 
effect  thus  far,  cannot  fail  to  exert  its  in- 
fluence on  the  future.  I  refer  to  the  educat- 
ing and  humanising  work  done  by  the  So- 
cialist workmen  clubs;  to  the  extraordinary 
advances  made  by  the  woman  movement; 
to  the  realistic  wave  in  educational  meth- 
ods that  set  in  with  the  school  legislation 
of  1892;  to  the  new  public  activity  of  the 
Church,  as  shown  on  the  one  hand  in  the 
great  philanthropic  undertakings  of  the 
conservative  Pastor  von  Bodelschwingh, 
and  on  the  other  in  the  efforts  of  the  lib- 
eral Pastor  Naumann  to  create  a  national 
workingmen's  party;  and,  above  all,  to  the 
new  literary  movement. 

It  is,  indeed,  a  matter  for  national  re- 
joicing that  just  at  this  time  two  men  of 
such  profound  earnestness  of  purpose  and 
of  such  signal  ability  to  grasp  the  one  thing 
needful  have  come  to  the  front  as  Haupt- 


Modern  German  Culture         1 1 7 

mann  and  Sudermann.  Both  men  are  now 
approaching  the  zenith  of  their  power;  both 
may  look  back  upon  a  career  of  constantly 
ascending  achievements.  Hanptmann  has 
risen  from  the  hopelessness  of  "  Vor  Son- 
nenaufgang  "  to  the  vita  nuova  of  the  "Ver- 
sunkene  Glocke  " ;  Sudermann,  from  the 
bitter  sarcasm  of  "  Sodoms  Ende  "  to  the 
Messianic  forebodings  of  his  "  Johannes." 
Both  seem  predestined  to  conciliate  the 
ideals  of  the  old  patriarchal  Germany  with 
the  unruly  claims  and  strivings  of  the  new 
industrial  Germany.  And  even  now  they 
seem  to  be  nearer  that  harmonious  view  of 
life  which  is  the  indispensable  condition  for 
the  creation  of  truly  great  works  of  art 
than  their  master  Ibsen,  who,  by  his  un- 
compromising radicalism,  is  prevented  from 
ever  fully  gratifying  that  most  natural  and 
most  human  demand  of  the  ordinary  man, 
the  desire  to  be  elevated  and  edified. 
The  literary  career  of  both  Hauptmann 


1 1 8  Glimpses  of 

and  Sudermann  has  from  the  very  first 
been  distinguished  by  a  deep  moral  fer- 
vour, by  a  holy  zeal  for  truth,  by  a  passion- 
ate longing  for  purity  of  thought  and  life; 
and  even  their  darkest  and  seemingly  hope- 
less pictures  of  social  distress  and  rotten- 
ness have  a  glow  of  that  enthusiasm  which 
makes  us  see  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth. 
What  could  be  gloomier  or  more  de- 
pressing than  the  awful  scenes  of  popular 
misery  and  degradation  that  are  rolled  up 
before  us  in  Hauptmann's  "  Die  Weber"? 
Yet  never  has  there  been  produced  a  work 
of  art  which  appealed  more  strongly  to  our 
moral  instincts.  Never  has  Poetry  lifted 
her  voice  more  solemnly  for  justice  and 
humanity;  never  has  she  appeared  more 
truly  as  a  messenger  from  above,  as  an 
angel  of  divine  wrath,  as  a  prophetess  of# 
eternal  judgments.  What  could  be  more 
oppressive  and  excruciating  than  the  men- 
tal agonies  portrayed  in  the  same  author's 


Modern  German  Culture         1 1 9 

"  Einsame  Menschen  " — agonies  of  souls 
blindly  struggling  for  freedom  and  light, 
craving  for  a  life  in  the  spirit,  for  complete- 
ness of  existence,  revelling  in  the  thought 
of  a  new,  all-embracing  religion,  but  totally 
unable  to  cope  with  existing  conditions, 
and  therefore  ground  down  under  the 
wheels  of  inexorable  reality?  Yet  I  doubt 
whether  there  are  many  works  of  literature 
that  preach  more  forcibly  the  necessity  of 
self-discipline,  that  impress  us  more  deeply 
with  the  beauty  of  simple  right-mindedness, 
or  that  glorify  more  truthfully  a  brave  ag- 
gressive idealism. 

Sudermann's  artistic  temper  is  diametric- 
ally opposed  to  that  of  Hauptmann. 
Hauptmann  is  lyrical,  Sudermann  is  rhe- 
torical; Hauptmann  is  a  strange  combina- 
tion of  sublime  visions  and  cruel  disen- 
chantments,  of  fantastic  mysticism  and  im- 
pressionist realism,  of  pantheistic  ideals  and 
a  hidden   longing   for   the   lost   belief  of 


1 20  Glimpses  of 

childhood;  Sudermann  is  absolutely 
straightforward,  there  are  no  mysterious 
recesses  in  him,  he  is  a  single-minded 
champion  of  intellectual  freedom  and  un- 
hampered individuality.  Yet  in  spite  of 
these  differences  in  the  artistic  temper  of 
the  two  men,  the  moral  effect  of  Suder- 
mann's  dramas  is  very  similar  to  that  of 
Hauptmann's.  Take  such  a  play  as  "  Die 
Ehre  "  with  its  lurid  descriptions  of  base- 
ness and  debauchery.  The  effect  of  this 
drama  is  not  debasing  or  enervating.  On 
the  contrary,  it  is  stimulating  and  stirring 
in  the  highest  degree.  It  affects  us  as  a 
formidable  arraignment  of  social  conditions 
which  it  is  for  us  to  set  right ;  like  Schiller's 
youthful  dramas,  it  fills  us  with  moral  in- 
dignation; it  inspires  us  with  a  solemn  de- 
termination to  put  our  hand  to  the  plough 
which  is  to  rake  up  the  barren  field  of  hu- 
manity and  open  it  to  the  wholesome  influx 
of  light  and  air.     Or  take  the  most  widely 


Modern  German  Culture         1 2 1 

known  of  Sudermann's  earlier  works, 
"  Heimat."  What  gives  to  this  drama  its 
distinguishing  feature  and  its  abiding  value 
is  that  here  we  have  not  merely  a  domestic 
tragedy  of  the  order  of  "  The  Second  Mrs. 
Tanqueray,"  not  merely  a  breaking  loose 
from  family  ties  that  have  become  intoler- 
able, not  merely  a  revolt  against  a  paternal 
authority  which  stifles  individual  life,  but 
beside  and  above  all  this  an  ever-present 
sense  of  the  sacredness  of  personal  obliga- 
tions and  a  recognition  of  the  supreme 
duty  of  faithfulness  to  one's  higher  self. 

Indeed,  it  is  not  surprising  that  these  two 
men,  Hauptmann  and  Sudermann,  should 
have  come  to  be  acknowledged  as  the  real 
leaders  in  the  new  literary  movement  of 
Germany.  From  the  very  first  they  have 
given  a  voice  to  the  hopes,  longings,  and 
perplexities  bound  up  with  the  essentially 
modern  problems  of  modern  life;  and 
nearly  every  new  work  of  theirs  has  marked 


1 2  2  Glimpses  of 

a  step  forward,  has  brought  them  nearer  to 
that  comprehensiveness  of  view  from  which 
the  conflicts  of  existence  appear  not  any- 
more as  irreconcilable  and  permanent,  but 
as  fleeting  discords  dissolving  into  the 
strains  of  the  world's  universal  symphony, 
thereby  increasing  its  volume  and  height- 
ening its  beauty. 

While  youngest  Germany  is  thus  work- 
ing out  its  destiny  under  auspices  upon 
the  whole  encouraging,  old  Germany  is  by 
no  means  dead.  Some  days  ago  I  had  a 
glimpse  of  it,  when  Herman  Grimm  gave 
me  a  drama  written  by  his  wife,  Giesela  von 
Arnim,  the  daughter  of  Bettina,  which  he 
himself,  since  her  death  some  eight  years 
ago,  has  edited  with  loving  care.  Her- 
man Grimm  himself  is  a  noble  representa- 
tive of  that  golden  age  of  letters  at  the  be- 
ginning of  this  century,  when  it  was  still 
possible  for  the  man  of  culture  to  develop 
all  his  faculties  into  a  harmonious  whole; 


Modern  German  Culture         123 

and  as  he  sat  opposite  me  in  his  study,  talk- 
ing in  his  fascinating  manner — a  combina- 
tion of  frankness,  melancholy,  gracefulness, 
benignity,  and  humour — about  his  hopes 
for  America,  about  the  formalism  of  mod- 
ern philological  learning,  about  his  uncle 
Jacob,  his  father,  Bettina,  and  other  noble 
shades  of  the  past,  it  seemed  to  me  that  I 
had  never  seen  a  man  who  was  so  perfect 
an  embodiment  of  mental  and  moral  refine- 
ment, or  such  a  living  protest  against  the 
materialism  of  the  day.  Giesela  must  have 
been  a  woman  in  every  way  worthy  of  a 
man  like  Herman  Grimm  and  in  every 
way  worthy  of  the  noble  traditions  implied 
by  the  name  of  Arnim.  And  we  probably 
do  not  go  astray  in  thinking  that  it  is  partly 
the  inherited  longings  and  aspirations  of 
the  Arnim  family  which  in  this  posthumous 
drama  of  hers  (the  work  of  decades,  as  her 
husband  tells  us)  have  found  a  supreme 
poetic  expression. 


124  Glimpses  of 

Its  title  is  "Alt  Schottland";  its  plot  cen- 
tres around  the  futile  efforts  of  Charles  Ed- 
ward, the  last  Stuart  pretender,  to  recon- 
quer the  throne  of  his  fathers.  The  con- 
flict which  pervades  the  action  is  similar  to 
that  now  being  waged  between  the  old 
Germany  and  the  new:  on  the  one  hand, 
chivalrous  old  Scotland,  with  its  mountains 
and  lakes,  its  legends  and  songs,  its  se- 
cluded country  homes,  its  faithfulness  and 
devotion;  on  the  other,  commercial  Eng- 
land, with  its  highly  developed  city  life,  its 
party  struggles,  its  popular  freedom,  its 
selfishness  and  greed.  In  the  midst  of  this 
conflict  there  stands  a  figure  of  wonderful 
impressiveness  and  pathos:  Lord  Jacob 
Mac  Orn,  an  old  Scotch  nobleman  whose 
house  is  drawn  into  the  ruin  of  the  luckless 
dynasty  with  which  all  his  best  feelings  are 
associated.  Herman  Grimm.makes  it  prob- 
able that  this  Scottish  lord  is  a  composite 
portrait,    as   it   were,    of    Giesela's    father, 


Modern  German  Culture         1 2  5 

Achim  von  Arnim,  and  of  Jacob  Grimm. 
Like  Jacob  Grimm,  he  is  a  silver-haired  pa- 
triarch, revelling  in  the  traditions  of  the 
past  and  feeling  nowhere  happier  than  in 
the  quiet  realm  of  his  library.  Like  Achim 
von  Arnim,  he  is  an  uncrowned  king,  un- 
disputed lord  of  his  estate  and  his  family, 
with  every  fibre  of  his  being  bound  to  his 
native  soil,  but  his  face  turned  toward  the 
regions  of  the  infinite  and  the  eternal.  A 
cousin  of  his,  instigated  by  his  English  wife, 
intrigues  against  him,  seeking  to  put  him- 
self in  possession  of  his  estate.  The  law- 
suit about  the  ownership  of  this  estate, 
which  has  been  going  on  for  some  time, 
would  undoubtedly  have  been  decided  in 
Lord  Jacob's  favour  if  the  perfidious  Eng- 
lish woman  had  not  managed  to  destroy 
the  documentary  evidence;  so  that  the  case 
cannot  be  settled  by  the  courts,  but  has  to 
be  submitted  to  the  good  pleasure  of  the 
King.     And  since  Lord  Jacob  is  reported 


126  Glimpses  of 

to  have  given  shelter  in  his  castle  to  the 
fugitive  Charles  Edward,  the  King  decides 
against  him. 

The  scene  where  the  old  nobleman,  upon 
receipt  of  the  fatal  news,  takes  leave  of  the 
home  of  his  ancestors,  and,  surrounded  by 
his  family  and  his  servants,  goes  out  into 
the  world,  is  the  climax  of  the  play  and 
one  of  the  most  affecting  in  dramatic  lit- 
erature. The  faithless  cousin  and  his  wife 
are  staying  as  guests  in  the  house,  for  it 
is  the  old  patriarch's  birthday  and  a  gay 
festival  has  been  planned  by  the  household. 
But  now  the  guests  have  suddenly  become 
the  owners,  and  the  festival  is  changed  to 
a  funeral.  It  seems  as  though  the  old 
squire  could  not  tear  himself  away  from 
the  spot  where  his  whole  life  has  been  spent 
so  honourably  and  fruitfully.  He  stops  at 
every  nook  and  corner  of  the  ancestral  hall; 
he  addresses  the  chairs,  the  tables  hallowed 
by  sacred  memories;  he  lingers  over  the 


Modern  German  Culture        127 

thought  of  the  beloved  ones  that  have 
passed  beyond  from  out  these  walls.  At 
last,  when  he  comes  to  the  place  where, 
years  ago,  he  pressed  the  last  kiss  upon 
the  lips  of  his  wife,  he  faints  away.  He  is 
thought  to  be  dead.  The  children  and  the 
household  burst  into  cries  of  mingled  grief 
and  wrath.  Only  Elinor,  his  heroic  daugh- 
ter, feels  it  cannot  be  the  last.  She  kneels 
down  at  his  side;  she  throws  her  arms 
around  him;  she  calls  up  before  him  the 
form,  the  voice  of  her  mother;  she  strikes 
on  the  harp  the  tune  of  "  Old  Scotland," 
an  ancient  national  hymn  which  seems  to 
voice  the  feelings  of  this  family  in  all  great 
crises.  And  now  the  old  man  rises  as  in  a 
trance;  he  grasps  the  harp  himself  and  fin- 
gers it  mightily;  the  whole  household 
breaks  out  with  fervent  passion  in  the  be- 
loved hymn,  and  thus,  supported  by  his 
sons,  and  followed  by  his  faithful  folk,  he 
strides  away,  a  Caesar,  a  conquerer  of  worlds 
invisible ! 


128  Glimpses  of 

Truly,  the  whole  Ibsenite  company  of 
cynics,  modern  prophets,  and  would-be  re- 
formers seem  to  sink  into  nothingness  if 
brought  face  to  face  with  characters  of 
such  genuine  grandeur  as  this  simple-mind- 
ed country  nobleman  of  the  old  school;  and 
it  is  devoutly  to  be  hoped  that  the  rapid 
modernisation  of  her  social  conditions 
through  which  Germany  is  at  present  pass- 
ing, will  not  lead  her  away  from  the  ideals 
of  life  which  this  man  so  superbly  repre- 
sents. 


Modern  German  Culture         129 


IX.— MAX  HALBE'S  "  MOTHER 
EARTH  " 

January,    1898. 

The  rapidity  with  which  things  have  been 
moving  in  Germany  since  the  final  estab- 
lishment of  political  unity,  in  1870,  is  truly 
astonishing.  Thirty  years  ago  no  one 
would  have  dreamed  of  the  possibility  of 
English  commerce  ever  being  seriously 
threatened  by  Germany;  to-day  the  German 
flag  is  the  principal  rival  of  the  Union  Jack 
in  nearly  every  quarter  of  the  globe.  At 
the  Centennial  Exposition  of  1876  the 
German  industrial  exhibit  was  character- 
ised by  the  German  commissioner  himself 
as  "cheap  and  worthless";  at  Chicago,  in 
1894,  German  manufactures  formed  in 
quality  as  well  as  bulk  perhaps  the  most 


130  Glimpses  of 

noteworthy  part  of  the  whole  exposition. 
Twenty  years  ago  hardly  a  woman  student 
was  to  be  found  at  the  German  universities; 
during  the  current  semester  there  are  two 
hundred  women  hearers  at  the  University 
of  Berlin  alone.  Fifteen  years  ago  the 
repertoire  of  the  German  stage  depended, 
apart  from  Shakspere  and  the  German 
classics  of  the  eighteenth  century,  largely 
on  Norwegian  and  French  importations; 
to-day  Sudermann  and  Hauptmann  are  be- 
ing brought  out  in  London  and  Paris,  and 
in  Germany  itself  there  has  rallied  around 
their  names  a  new  dramatic  school,  thor- 
oughly German,  thoroughly  realistic,  and 
thoroughly  alive  to  the  vital  questions  of 
the  day. 

One  of  the  latest  productions  of  this  new 
school — "  Mother  Earth,"  a  tragedy  by 
Max  Halbe — has  recently  been  received 
with  such  general  approval,  both  by  the 
critics  and  the  public  of  the  great  centres 


Modern  German  Culture         1 3 1 

of  German  culture,  that  it  may  fairly  be 
accepted  as  representative  of  the  prevail- 
ing literary  drift  of  the  present  generation. 
Halbe  is  not  a  novice  in  dramatic  art. 
Among  his  earlier  dramas  there  are  at  least 
three  of  decided  individuality  and  power: 
"  The  Upstart  "  (1889),  a  fearful  picture  of 
elemental  passions  burying  a  German  peas- 
ant home  in  wreck  and  ruin ;  "  Icedriftings  " 
(1892),  a  merciless  exposition  of  the  moral 
rottenness  which,  according  to  Halbe,  has 
undermined  the  very  breastworks  of  mod- 
ern society,  so  that  they  will  surely  crumble 
away  when  the  autumnal  floods  of  popular 
revolt  are  coming;  "  Youth  "  (1893),  a  fas- 
cinating though  depressing  tale  of  a  boyish 
love  heedlessly  rushing  into  sin  and  disas- 
ter. But  only  with  "  Mother  Earth  "  has 
Halbe  struck  a  theme  which  leads  into  the 
very  midst  of  the  great  struggle  that  di- 
vides modern  Germany  into  two  hostile 
camps,  the  struggle  between  the  traditions 
of  the  past  and  the  ideals  of  the  future. 


i32  Glimpses  of 

The  particular  form  which  this  struggle 
assumes  in  the  present  case  is  the  conflict 
between  love  pure  and  simple,  based  upon 
instinct  and  the  emotions,  and  the  subli- 
mated love  of  intellectual  companionship. 

Paul  Warkentin,  the  son  of  an  East  El- 
bian  country  gentleman  (all  these  modern- 
est  Germans  are  East  Elbians),  became  ac- 
quainted, while  studying  at  Berlin,  with  a 
young  woman  of  superior  intellect  and 
will-power,  Hella  Bernhardy  by  name.  The 
daughter  of  a  university  professor,  she  had 
from  childhood  on  led  a  city  life,  and  being 
of  an  almost  masculine  bent  of  mind,  had 
early  become  absorbed  in  the  problems  of 
the  day,  particularly  in  the  woman  move- 
ment. To  Paul,  the  dreamy,  undeveloped 
country  boy,  she  opened  a  new  world  of 
ideas;  and  the  natural  consequence  was 
their  engagement  and  subsequent  marriage. 
The  latter,  however,  was  not  accomplished 
without  a  violent  catastrophe.     For  Paul's 


Modern  German  Culture         133 

father,  who  naturally  wished  his  son  to  be 
his  successor  in  the  management  of  the  es- 
tate, insisted  on  his  marrying  one  of  the 
girls  of  the  neighborhood,  Antoinette,  a 
playmate  of  Paul's  in  his  country  school- 
days, to  whom  he  had  been  as  much  as  en- 
gaged when  he  left  for  the  university.  And 
when  Paul  refused  both  to  marry  Antoi- 
nette and  to  assume  the  management  of 
the  estate,  the  irascible  old  gentleman  for- 
bade him  his  house. 

All  this  has  happened  some  ten  years 
ago.  Since  then  Paul  and  his  wife  have 
plunged  into  the  exciting  life  of  Berlin 
journalism,  they  have  been  editing  a  paper 
bearing  the  suggestive  name  of  Women's 
Rights,  and,  if  we  may  trust  Hella's  own 
statements,  have  played  a  considerable  part 
in  radical  politics.  Now  the  father  has  sud- 
denly died;  and,  for  the  first  time  since  his 
marriage,  Paul  re-enters  the  house  of  his 
ancestors  to  pay  the  last  homage  to  the  de- 


134  Glimpses  of 

parted  one.  Hella  accompanies  him,  al- 
though she  hates  to  leave  the  city,  and  be- 
grudges the  delay  which  this  trip  will  cause 
in  the  printing  of  her  next  editorial  in 
Women's  Rights.  However,  to  recompense 
herself  for  this  intellectual  sacrifice,  she  has 
brought  with  her  a  young  admirer  of  hers, 
who  will  help  her  reading  proof  while  Paul 
is  busy  with  the  funeral  arrangements  or 
receives  visits  of  condolence !  Paul,  on  the 
other  hand,  with  the  first  step  over  the 
threshold  of  his  old  home,  feels  himself 
drawn  back  into  the  spell  of  the  long-neg- 
lected but  ever-precious  recollections  of  his 
youth.  And  so  it  is  not  surprising  that 
husband  and  wife  do  not  harmonise  as  well 
in  these  new,  quiet  surroundings  as  they 
seemed  to  do  in  the  bustling  stir  of  the 
capital.  In  fact,  they  are  at  odds  in  small 
things  as  well  as  great.  Paul  is  deeply 
touched  at  the  sight  of  the  parlour  chande- 
lier lit  in  his  honour  by  the  old  maiden  aunt, 


Modern  German  Culture         135 

his  foster-mother; — Hella  thinks  such  senti- 
mentality ridiculous.  Paul  comes  in,  cov- 
ered with  snow  and  glowing  with  delight 
over  a  ride  he  has  taken  on  horseback 
through  the  wintry  landscape,  the  first  one 
for  ten  years :  "  Ah,  you  don't  know  what 
it  is  to  be  a  man  until  you  feel  a  horse  un- 
der you  !  " — Hella  wishes  herself  to  be  back 
at  her  desk  in  the  editor's  office.  And 
when  Hella  reminds  her  husband  of  the 
days  when  they  were  still  battling  shoulder 
to  shoulder  in  the  good  fight  for  the  bet- 
terment of  the  race,  he  breaks  out :  "  Fight 
for  the  betterment  of  the  race?  You  had 
better  speak  of  the  dissipation  of  my  ener- 
gies, the  benumbing  of  my  natural  instincts, 
the  bankruptcy  of  my  moral  life — that  is 
what  has  been  the  result  of  this  artificial 
existence  of  ours,  this  continual  restless- 
ness, this  bookishness,  these  airy  abstrac- 
tions, this  cutting  loose  from  the  soil  where 
our  true  strength  is  rooted." 


136  Glimpses  of 

It  is  after  one  of  these  scenes  (needless  to 
say!)  that  Antoinette,  the  love  of  Paul's 
boyhood,  appears.  After  having  been  jilted 
by  Paul,  the  impetuous  girl,  out  of  sheer 
despair,  had  thrown  herself  away  on  the  first 
man  that  asked  for  her  hand,  a  worthless, 
rollicking,  dissipated  Junker  of  the  neigh- 
bourhood; and  since  then  she  has  been  lead- 
ing a  wretched  and  ignominious  life,  hating 
herself,  her  husband,  the  world.  Now  she 
sees  Paul  again,  and  his  face  at  once  re- 
veals to  her  his  history.  "  One  consola- 
tion is  left  me,"  she  tells  him;  "  you  have 
made  me  unhappy,  but  you  are  unhappy 
too !  And  to  enjoy  that  I  am  here !  "  Paul, 
on  his  part,  is  transfixed.  All  his  ideals  of 
an  active  and  useful  life,  all  the  traditions 
of  his  home,  with  its  friendly  human  inter- 
course, its  naturalness,  its  honesty  and 
soundness,  seem  to  him  to  have  taken  form 
in  this  daughter  of  his  own  native  soil,  this 
superb,  beautiful  woman,  all  the  more  beau- 


Modern  German  Culture        137 

tiful  to  him  for  her  grief.  For  she  is  griev- 
ing for  him!  She  might  have  been  his! 
And  he  has  thrown  her  away  to  attach  him- 
self to  a  mere  shadow,  to  a  sexless  being  in 
whose  veins  there  flows  no  blood,  and 
whose  brain  is  thinking  thoughts  that  have 
no  meaning  for  him ! 

Up  to  this  point  the  action  of  the  play  is 
perfectly  consistent,  in  a  way  even  fascinat- 
ing; for  Halbe  is  a  master  of  those  little  illu- 
minating touches  which  bring  out  with  life- 
like energy  the  great  contrast  that  pervades 
the  whole  drama.  But  now  we  have  ar- 
rived at  the  crucial  point  of  the  plot.  What 
is  Paul  to  do?  Is  he  to  leave  Hella  and  re- 
turn to  his  first  love,  or  is  he  to  remain 
faithful  to  his  marital  vow  and  suppress  his 
instinctive  longings?  Either  solution,  it 
seems  to  me,  would  have  been  artistically 
possible,  and  to  a  degree  even  satisfac- 
tory. For  Hella  appears  from  the  very 
first  so  entirely  devoid  not  only  of  womanly 


138  Glimpses  of 

grace,  but  of  womanly  feeling  also,  so 
utterly  incapable  of  even  understanding  her 
wifely  duties,  that  one  would  greet  Paul's 
deserting  her  for  Antoinette  almost  with 
joy,  savage  though  this  joy  might  be.  It 
would  be  a  return  to  nature — to  undefiled, 
sensuous,  exuberant  nature;  it  would  be 
violence,  but  it  would  be  violence  that 
overturns  a  false,  a  vicious  order  of  things, 
that  sets  things  into  their  right  relations. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  Paul  and  Antoinette 
were  to  renounce  each  other,  this,  too, 
would  be  in  a  way  a  satisfactory  ending. 
It  would  be  a  moral  victory — a  victory  of 
duty  over  instinct.  Both  Paul  and  An- 
toinette would  return  to  their  daily  tasks, 
enriched  and  strengthened  by  the  rapturous 
feelings  which  the  assurance  of  their  spir- 
itual inseparableness  has  brought  them. 
And  both  would  find  ample  opportunity  for 
making  humanity  reap  the  fruits  of  their 
bitter  experience — Paul  by  devoting  him- 


Modern  German  Culture        1 39 

self  with  a  higher  heart  and  a  nobler  pur- 
pose to  the  cause  for  which  he  has  been 
working  these  last  ten  years;  Antoinette  by 
giving  herself  to  that  most  womanly  of  oc- 
cupations, the  healing  of  wounds  and  the 
relieving  of  distress. 

Halbe  has  chosen  to  follow  neither  of 
these  two  lines  of  thought.  Instead,  he 
makes  the  two  lovers  go  hand  in  hand  into 
death,  "  return  to  Mother  Earth,"  as  they 
say  themselves.  This  seems  to  me,  even 
apart  from  the  melodramatic  manner  in 
which  it  is  brought  about,  an  utterly 
indefensible  ending  of  the  play,  for  it 
is  in  vain  that  Halbe  tries  to  justify 
it  by  Hella's  unwillingness  to  relieve  her 
husband  from  his  vows.  Its  true  reason 
(not  justification)  lies  in  the  fact  that 
Halbe,  like  nearly  all  the  other  repre- 
sentatives of  youngest  Germany,  is  given 
over  to  a  hopeless  fatalism  which  makes 
him  shrink  from  any  kind  of  free  moral 


14°  Glimpses  of 

decision.  And  here,  too,  is  to  be  sought 
the  reason  for  the  inexpressible  gloom 
which  nearly  all  the  productions  of  this 
latest  literary  school  exert  upon  us.  No 
one  would  deny  the  power  and  bril- 
liancy of  these  young  writers,  no  one  could 
help  feeling  grateful  for  the  new  life  which 
they  have  infused  into  the  drama.  Works 
like  Hartleben's  "  Hanna  Jagert,"  like 
Hirschfeld's  "  Die  Mutter,"  like  Halbe's 
"  Jugend  "  and  "  Mutter  Erde  "  are  symp- 
toms of  a  literary  activity  that  promises 
much.  But  these  promises  will  not  be 
fully  realised  until  the  Germans  have,  once 
for  all,  cast  the  pessimism  of  Ibsen  and 
Tolstoi  behind  them,  until  they  have 
learned  once  more  to  believe  in  moral  free- 
dom, until  they  once  more  shall  dare  to 
defy  reality.  This  it  is  that  gives  to  works 
like  Hauptmann's  "  Versunkene  Glocke," 
and  Sudermann's  "  Johannes,"  such  a  great 
symptomatic    significance.     For    here    we 


Modern  German  Culture        141 

feel  indeed  the  pulse  of  a  new  time,  here  we 
see  clearly  the  beginnings  of  a  new 
idealism. 


142  Glimpses  of 


X.— SUDERMANN'S  "  JOHN  THE 
BAPTIST  " 

February,   1898. 

The  cable  has  informed  us  that  Suder- 
mann's  "  Johannes,"  on  its  first  production, 
on  January  16,  in  the  Deutsches  Theater  of 
Berlin,  in  spite  of  the  elaborate  stage  set- 
ting, and  in  spite  of  the  superb  acting  of 
Josef  Kainz  and  Agnes  Sorma,  was  at  least 
a  partial  failure.  If  this  be  true,  one  can- 
not help  thinking  that  the  failure  was  due 
chiefly  to  the  fact  that  the  audience, 
through  the  attempted  prohibition  of  the 
performance  by  the  police,  had  been  led  to 
expect  something  like  a  Biblical  extrava- 
ganza, and  was  naturally  loath  to  be  put 
off  with  a  religious  drama  of  deep  poetic 
feeling.     The  lover  of  literature,  and  the 


Modern  German  Culture        143 

lover  of  German  literature  in  particular, 
will  judge  this  play  differently;  he  will  carry 
away  from  its  reading  a  sense  of  profound 
gratitude  to  Sudermann  for  having  once 
more  (and  this  time  more  emphatically  than 
ever)  stepped  forward  as  a  leader  in  the  up- 
ward, idealistic  movement  which,  in  vari- 
ous ways,  had  made  itself  felt  for  some  time 
past  until  last  year  it  broke  forth  with  an 
overpowering  wealth  of  poetry  in  Haupt- 
mann's  "  The  Sunken  Bell." 

Sudermann's  John  the  Baptist  is  indeed 
a  counterpart  to  Hauptmann's  Henry,  the 
bell-founder.  The  fate  of  both  is  genuinely 
tragic.  The  mediaeval  mystic  succumbs  in 
striving  for  an  artistic  ideal  too  grand  and 
too  shadowy  for  human  imagination.  The 
Jewish  prophet  succumbs  in  striving  for  a 
moral  ideal  too  visionary  and  too  austere 
for  human  happiness.  Both  lose  faith  in 
themselves  and  in  their  mission,  and  both 
rise  through  their  very  failure  to  the  height 


144  Glimpses  of 

of  true  humanity.  Nothing  is  more  im- 
pressive in  Sudermann's  drama  than  the 
way  in  which  this  disenchantment  of  the 
prophet  with  himself,  this  gradual  awaken- 
ing to  the  sense  of  his  fundamental  error, 
and  the  final  bursting  forth  of  the  true  light 
from  doubt  and  despair,  are  brought  before 
us. 

In  the  beginning  we  see  the  preacher  in 
the  wilderness.  He  has  gathered  about 
himself  the  laden  and  the  lowly.  With 
burning  words  he  speaks  to  them  of  the 
woe  of  the  time,  of  the  misery  of  the  people 
trodden  into  the  dust  both  by  the  foreign 
conqueror  and  by  its  own  rulers,  tormented 
by  its  traditional  obedience  to  a  heartless, 
inexorable  law.  And  he  holds  out  to  them 
the  vision  of  the  deliverer  and  avenger  that 
is  to  come :  the  Messiah,  clad  in  splendour, 
like  the  King  of  the  heavenly  host,  the 
cherubim  around  him  on  armoured  steeds 
and  with  flaming  swords,  ready  to  crush 


Modern  German  Culture        145 

and  to  slaughter.  Yet,  irresistible  and  in- 
toxicating as  his  harangues  are,  an  occa- 
sional look,  an  occasional  word  betrays  even 
here  that  his  faith  is  not  born  of  a  free  and 
joyous  surrender  to  the  divine,  but  of  a 
dark,  brooding  fanaticism,  and  we  feel  in- 
stinctively that  it  will  not  stand  the  test  of 
self-scrutiny. 

Next  he  appears  in  the  streets  of  Jeru- 
salem, inciting  the  populace  to  revolt 
against  Herod  and  his  lustful  house,  es- 
pecially against  the  scandalous  marriage  in- 
to which  the  tetrarch  has  just  entered  with 
Herodias,  the  divorced  wife  of  his  own 
brother,  and  which  he  wishes  to  have  sanc- 
tioned by  the  synagogue.  But  here  again 
it  is  the  blind  fanatic  rather  than  the  in- 
spired leader  whom  we  hear  in  John's  lan- 
guage. Having  led  the  infuriated  mob  to 
the  King's  palace,  he  is  at  a  loss  what  to 
do,  he  feels  lonely  in  the  midst  of  the  surg- 
ing crowd,  he  longs  for  his  rocks  in  the 
10 


146  Glimpses  of 

wilderness;  and  when  the  Pharisees  take 
this  opportunity  to  embarrass  him  by  mock- 
ing questions  about  the  new  Law  the  ad- 
vent of  which  he  has  been  holding  out  to 
his  hearers,  he  has  no  answer.  Just  then 
there  is  heard  out  of  the  midst  of  the  popu- 
lace the  voice  of  a  Galilean  pilgrim: 
"  Higher  than  Law  and  Sacrifice  is  Love !  " 
It  is  the  message  of  him  whose  coming 
John  has  been  preaching  without  divining 
his  true  call.  This  word  strikes  deep  into 
his  soul,  all  the  deeper  since  he  evidently 
himself  has  all  along  been  dimly  groping 
for  a  similar  thought.  For  the  first  time 
he  doubts  his  own  mission,  for  the  first 
time  there  looms  up  before  him  the  vision 
of  something  more  exalted  than  his  own 
dream  of  the  Messiah. 

Again  he  rises  to  his  full  power  as  a  hero 
of  asceticism  in  his  interview  with  Hero- 
dias  and  her  wanton  daughter  Salome.  Sa- 
lome has  been  fascinated  by  the  weird,  fan- 


Modern  German  Culture        147 

tastic  appearance  of  this  man  with  the  lion's 
mane  and  the  far-away  look  in  his  eyes;  she 
wishes  to  flirt  with  him,  to  tame  him,  to 
possess  him.  When  he  enters  the  palace, 
she  receives  him  with  a  shower  of  roses 
and  the  voluptuous  songs  of  her  maidens. 
But  he  remains  unmoved.  "  Gird  thy 
loins,"  he  says  to  her,  "  and  turn  away  from 
me  in  sackcloth  and  ashes.  For  I  have  been 
sent  as  a  wrath  over  thee  and  as  a  curse  to 
destroy  thee."  And  he  does  not  seem  to 
notice  that  this  very  curse  affects  the  in- 
fatuated girl  like  a  magic  love  potion. 

Herodias,  too,  wishes  to  win  him — she 
wishes  to  make  him  a  tool  of  her  political 
designs,  to  stifle  through  him  the  popular 
opposition  to  the  clerical  sanction  of  her 
marriage;  and  she  attempts  to  bribe  him 
by  offering  him  the  charms  of  her  daughter. 
But  again  his  only  answer  is :  "  Adult- 
eress !  "  And  yet  even  this  victory  over 
sensual  temptation   leaves  a   sting  in   his 


148  Glimpses  of 

soul;  for  again  he  hears  that  mysterious 
word,  Love,  and  he  must  remain  silent 
when  Herodias  calls  out  to  him :  "  What 
right  have  you  to  judge  the  guilty,  you 
who  flee  from  human  life  into  the  loneliness 
of  the  desert?  What  do  you  know  of  those 
who  live  and  die  for  love's  sake?  " 

And  now  he  conies  to  see  that  he  does 
not  understand  even  those  nearest  to  him. 
The  wife  of  his  favourite  disciple  comes  to 
him  and  beseeches  him  to  give  back  to  her 
the  heart  of  her  husband;  for  since  he  has 
joined  the  band  of  the  Baptist's  followers 
he  has  forsaken  his  home  and  forgotten  his 
kindred.  And  John  never  knew  anything 
of  this  man's  inner  life,  he  knew  nothing 
of  the  love  that  he  is  accused  of  having 
stifled !  Who,  then,  is  he  to  teach  others — 
he  who  is  constantly  confronted  with  his 
own  limitations,  who  must  confess  to  him- 
self that  he  is  without  a  guiding  principle 
of  his  own  conduct!     Where  is  there  an 


Modern  German  Culture        H9 

outlook  for  him?  Where  is  the  path  to- 
ward his  salvation?  Is  it  this  Love  that  is 
thrust  upon  him  from  all  sides?  No,  no; 
it  cannot  be.  Love  is  littleness,  is  weak- 
ness, is  selfishness,  is  sin !  No,  the  only 
salvation  lies  in  the  Messiah,  in  him  who  is 
to  come  in  heavenly  splendour,  surrounded 
by  the  rainbow,  the  King  of  Kings,  the 
great  fulfiller  and  judge!  Thus  he  tries  to 
assure  himself,  thus  he  strains  every  nerve 
to  maintain  his  tottering  belief  in  his  mis- 
sion, to  keep  awake  the  hope  of  his  poor 
downtrodden  people.  And  from  this  very 
people,  from  the  mouth  of  an  old  wretched 
beggar-woman,  he  now  hears  for  the  first 
time  the  full,  the  cruel  truth :  "  We  do  not 
want  your  Messiah!  We  do  not  want 
your  King!  Kings  come  only  to  kings; 
they  have  nothing  in  common  with  us,  the 
poor.  Go  away;  let  us  alone,  you  false 
prophet ! " 

Immediately  after  this  scene  the  climax 


150  Glimpses  of 

is  reached.  Ever  since  the  Baptist  for  the 
first  time  heard  that  mysterious  message  of 
Love,  he  has  been  endeavouring  to  discov- 
er whence  it  came.  In  a  vague  manner  he 
has  associated  it  with  the  noble  youth 
whom  years  ago  he  baptised  in  the  Jordan, 
and  from  whom  he  has  in  some  way  hoped 
for  the  fulfilment  of  his  Messianic  dreams. 
Now  he  learns  from  some  Galilean  fisher- 
men that  this  Jesus  of  Nazareth  has  indeed 
brought  a  new  gospel — not  the  gospel  of 
a  superhuman  Messiah,  but  of  human 
brotherhood  and  kindliness,  of  the  love  of 
one's  enemies,  the  very  gospel  of  which 
John,  through  the  bitter  disenchantment, 
has  gradually  become  the  worthiest  pro- 
phet. Just  after  this  meeting  with  the 
Galileans  he  is  drawn  into  the  surging 
throng  of  the  populace,  who  have  streamed 
together  to  make  a  forcible  attack  upon 
Herod  and  his  wife  as  they,  in  solemn  pro- 
cession, repair  to  the  temple.     Torn  with 


Modern  German  Culture        1 5 1 

conflicting  feelings  as  he  is,  unable  to  col- 
lect his  thoughts,  he  is  pushed  along  to  the 
steps  of  the  temple.  A  stone  is  forced 
into  his  hand:  he  is  to  execute  the  judg- 
ment of  the  people  against  the  vicious  King 
himself.  Mechanically  he  lifts  the  stone; 
he  calls  out  to  Herod :  "  In  the  name  of 
him  who —  ";  but  the  stone  glides  from  his 
hand,  and  he  stammers — "  of  him  who  bade 
me  love  you !  " 

The  rest  of  the  drama  brings  little  new  of 
inner  experience.  Once  more  John  rises  to 
the  full  grandeur  of  the  Old  Testament 
prophet.  Imprisoned,  and  led  before  the 
love-infatuated  Salome,  he  once  more  defies 
her  raging  passion.  He  dies  with  words  of 
peace  and  hope  upon  his  lips.  Immedi- 
ately after  his  execution  there  is  heard  from 
the  street  the  hosannah  of  the  jubilant 
masses  greeting  the  entry  of  Jesus  into  Je- 
rusalem. 

It  may  be  that  here  and  there  in  this 


152  Glimpses  of 

drama  there  is  an  overdose  of  staginess; 
staginess  is  undoubtedly  the  danger  of  Su- 
dermann's  talent.  It  may  be  that  the  real- 
istic touches  are  here  and  there  a  little 
forced,  and  seem  like  effects  borrowed 
from  the  religious  paintings  of  Munkacsy. 
It  may  be  that  the  talk  of  the  Roman  sol- 
diery smacks  a  little  too  much  of  the  jargon 
of  the  Prussian  officers  of  the  guard.  And 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  figure  of 
Salome,  this  self-conscious,  calculating 
Berlin  coquette,  falls  far  behind  that  ravish- 
ing creation  of  Heine's  fancy  after  which 
she  has  been  modelled: 

"  In  den  Handen  tragt  sie  immer 
Jene  Schiissel  mit  dem  Haupte 
Des  Johannes,  und  sie  kiisst  es, 
Ja  sie  kiisst  das  Haupt  mit  Inbrunst. 

"  War  vielleicht  ein  Bischen  bose 
Auf  den  Liebsten,  liess  ihn  kopfen  ; 
Aber  als  sie  auf  der  Schiissel 
Das  geliebte  Haupt  erblickte, 

"  Weinte  sie  und  ward  verriickt, 
Und  sie  starb  in  Liebeswahnsinn. 
(Liebeswahnsinn  !    Pleonasmus  ! 
Liebe  ist  ja  schon  ein  Wahnsinn!)" 


Modern  German  Culture        153 

But  what  does  all  this  mean  beside  the 
fact  that  in  the  Baptist  himself  Sudermann 
has  created  a  character  worthy  of  Schiller's 
genius;  a  character  which  arouses  in  us 
emotions  such  as  our  forefathers  must  have 
felt  when  they  saw  the  first  performance  of 
a  "  Jungfrau  von  Orleans  "  or  a  "  Wilhelm 
Tell";  a  character  which,  we  may  confi- 
dently hope,  will  be  a  source  of  inspiration 
and  delight  to  our  children  and  our  chil- 
dren's children. 


1 54  Glimpses  of 


XL— ARNOLD  BOCKLIN 
July,  1898. 

It  is  surprising  how  indifferent  the  major- 
ity of  American  art  students  and  cultivated 
Americans  in  general  are  towards  whatever 
Germany  has  accomplished  in  the  Fine  Arts. 
While  the  Gothic  architecture  of  France 
and  England,  Italian  painting  and  sculpture 
of  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  Renaissance, 
the  Renaissance  architecture  of  Italy  and 
France,  and  modern  French  and  English 
painting  have  engaged  both  the  careful  at- 
tention of  specialists  and  the  devoted  in- 
terest of  the  wider  circle  of  art-lovers,  it 
would  be  in  vain  to  search  among  us  for  a 
single  prominent  advocate  or  exponent  of 
German  achievements  in  these  three  sister 
arts.  Where  is  there  in  this  country  an  op- 
portunity to  study  adequately  the  wonder- 


Modern  German  Culture         155 

ful  development  of  German  church-build- 
ing during  the  Romanesque  period?  How 
much  is  known,  even  by  professional  art 
critics,  of  the  superb  thirteenth-century 
sculptures,  in  Naumburg,  Wechselburg, 
Bamberg,  or  Freiburg;  how  much  of  the 
extraordinary  wood-carvings  of  the  fif- 
teenth century,  such  as  the  altar-works  of 
Michael  Pacher  and  Hans  Briiggemann? 
What  American  contribution  has  there 
been  made — if  we  except  the  admirable 
work  (tone  by  S.  R.  Koehler — towards  a 
fuller  knowledge  even  of  such  men  as  Du- 
rer  and  HolUein?  And  how  many  Ameri- 
cans are  there  to  whom  the  names  of  Karl 
Rottmann,  Ludwig  Richter,  Moritz  von 
Schwind,  and  Anselm  Feuerbach  are  more 
than  mere  names? 

It  looks  as  though  the  same  fate  was 
about  to  overtake  the  life-work  of  Arnold 
Bocklin,'  and  yet  it  is  safe  to  say  not  only 
that  the  paintings  of  Bocklin  are  filling  the 


1 56  Glimpses  of 

imagination  of  cultivated  Germans  of  the 
present  day  to  a  degree  rarely  equalled  by 
artists  of  former  ages,  but  that  they  are 
entitled  to  the  earnest  consideration  of  all 
those — whether  they  be  Europeans  or 
Americans — to  whom  art  is  still  a  chosen 
interpreter  of  the  deepest  mysteries  of  life. 
There  is  probably  no  artist  of  modern 
times  in  whom  elemental  instinct  has  burst 
forth  with  such  tempestuous  power  as  in 
Bocklin.  There  may  be  painters  who,  like 
Turner,  surpass  him  in  glow  and  brilliancy 
of  colour;  others,  such  as  Puvis  de  Cha- 
vannes,  may  be  his  superiors  in  delicacy 
of  tint  and  outline;  still  others,  as  for  in- 
stance Verestchagin,  may  have  a  surer 
grasp  in  reproducing  actual  happening.  But 
not  since  the  days  of  the  Renaissance  has 
there  been  his  like  in  exultant  sense  of  cre- 
ative vitality.  Most  artists  are  copyists. 
They  merely  tell,  in  one  way  or  another, 
what  they  find  in  real  life;  they  derive  all 


Modern  German  Culture        1 5  7 

their  conceptions  from  what  they  see  or 
hear.  Only  the  greatest  create  their  own 
world.  It  is  to  these  that  Bocklin  belongs. 
Whether  we  like  his  conceptions  or  not,  it 
would  never  occur  to  us  to  deny  them  their 
right  of  existence,  as  little  as  we  should 
think  of  disputing  the  legitimacy  of  the 
manifold  forms  and  types  of  Nature-  her- 
self. This  alone  would  be  sufficient  to  give 
Bocklin  a  place  among  the  chosen  few. 
What  gives  him  an  added  significance  for 
our  own  time,  what  makes  him  a  represen- 
tative of  modern  life,  is  that  he,  more  in- 
tensely than  any  other  artist,  seems  to  have 
felt  in  himself  the  two  contrasting  passions 
of  the  modern  world:  its  feverish  striving, 
its  indomitable  thirst  for  boundless  activity, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  its  deep,  inarticulate 
craving  for  spiritual  peace. 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  example  of  the 
Titanic  impetuosity  of  Bocklin's  art  is  his 
"  Prometheus."     Not  even  the  masters  of 


158  Glimpses  of 

the  frieze  of  Pergamon  entered  more  fully 
into  the  spirit  of  fierce  revolt  that  charac- 
terises the  ancient  story  of  the  fight  of  the 
giants  against  the  gods.  But  to  this  spirit 
of  defiance  there  is  added  in  Bocklin  a 
sublime  touch  of  mysticism.  This  colossal 
but  shadowy  figure  that  we  see  chained  to 
the  summit  of  the  mountain,  stretching  out 
over  its  whole  ridge,  half  mingling  with 
the  clouds  that  surround  it,  we  feel  to  be 
a  part  of  the  universal  yearning  and  strug- 
gling of  creation  for  a  higher  existence. 
Indeed,  it  seems  as  though  dumb  nature 
had  found  a  voice  in  this  suffering  man. 
He,  rather  than  the  rocks  upon  which  he 
lies,  seems  to  form  the  real  summit  of  the 
mountain;  and  as  we  see  the  waves  of  pur- 
ple Okeanos  dashing  against  its  base,  as 
we  see  the  forests  on  its  slope  bending 
down  before  the  raging  gale,  we  can- 
not help  imagining  that  all  this  together — 
sea,  rocks,  forests,  clouds,  and  man — is  one 


Modern  German  Culture        1 59 

gigantic  being,  throbbing  with  passionate 
life,  brimming  over,  even  in  defeat,  with 
indomitable  energy  and  desire.  How  in- 
sipid and  sentimental  do  most  of  the  mod- 
ern representations  of  Prometheus  appear 
by  the  side  of  this  truly  yEschylean  con- 
ception ! 

It  is,  however,  not  only  in  such  intrinsi- 
cally heroic  situations  that  Bocklin's  extra- 
ordinary sense  for  the  elemental  forces  of 
nature  and  their  restless  weaving  and  work- 
ing asserts  itself.  Indeed,  one  might  de- 
scribe most  of  his  pictures  as  illustrations 
to  the  words  of  the  Earth-Spirit  in 
"  Faust  " : 

"In  Lebensfluten,  im  Thatensturm 
Wall  ich  auf  und  ab, 
Wehe  hin  und  her. 
Geburt  und  Grab, 
Ein  ewiges  Meer, 
Ein  wechselnd  Weben, 
Ein  gliihend  Leben — 

So  schaff  ich  am  sausenden  Webstuhl  der  Zeit 
Und  wirke  der  Gottheit  lebendiges  Kleid." 


160  Glimpses  of 

Or  rather,  most  of  his  paintings  seem  to 
quiver  with  that  intense,  eager,  ceaseless 
emotion  by  which  such  an  activity  as  the 
Earth-Spirit's  must  be  accompanied. 

What  an  irrepressible  animal  exuberance, 
for  instance,  breathes  in  his  pictures  of  the 
sea !  To  him  every  wave  is  a  living  being. 
As  they  dance  and  glitter  in  the  sunshine, 
as  they  roll  and  heave  in  the  storm,  as  they 
break  over  each  other  and  spread  into 
foamy  whirls,  as  they  glide  gently  upon  the 
sand,  every  one  of  them  seems  to  feel,  to 
sing,  to  wail,  to  long,  or  to  rejoice.  And 
at  the  same  time  the  sea  as  a  whole  seems 
to  be  a  huge,  many-headed,  mysterious 
monster,  of  insatiable  appetites,  of  unfath- 
omable power,  and  of  endlessly  changing 
forms.  So  that  we  are  not  in  the  least  sur- 
prised to  see  all  sorts  of  fantastic  shapes 
and  faces,  mermaids,  sea-dragons,  centaurs, 
and  fabulous  serpents,  lurking  in  the  water 
and  on  the  shore,  riding  on  the  crests  of 
waves  or  diving  into  the  deep. 


Modern  German  Culture         1 6 1 

One  of  these  pictures  shows  a  valley  be- 
tween two  gigantic  rollers,  evidently  in 
mid-ocean;  no  distant  view;  nothing  but 
this  enormous  mass  of  surging  water.  But 
on  the  top  of  one  of  the  waves  there  comes 
riding  along  a  shaggy  ocean  monster,  a  fat, 
brown,  rollicking,  sea-captain-like  fellow, 
and  his  sudden  appearance  frightens  some 
mermaids  that  are  sporting  below,  so  that 
they  plunge  headforemost  into  the  protect- 
ing element.  Another  picture  shows  the 
breakers  dashing  over  some  barren  rocks 
in  the  sea;  on  one  of  the  rocks  there  sits  a 
grizzly  Triton  blowing  lustily  into  a  tortu- 
ous shell  which  serves  him  for  a  trumpet; 
at  his  side,  stretched  out  on  her  back,  there 
lies  a  naked  woman,  letting  the  waves  wash 
over  her  voluptuously,  one  of  her  hands 
lazily  bent  backward  to  her  neck,  the  other 
playing  with  a  gorgeous  snake  that  has 
raised  its  luring  head  and  part  of  its  glit- 
tering body  from  under  the  water.  In  still 
11 


1 62  Glimpses  of 

another  picture  of  this  kind  we  see  the  tow- 
ering cliffs  of  a  desolate  coast;  the  surf  is 
just  receding,  in  rapid  eddies,  through  the 
crevices  of  the  rocks  and  boulders.  In  the 
middle  of  the  cliffs  there  is  a  cavern-like 
chasm,  and  here  there  stands,  leaning 
against  the  bare  wall,  a  strange,  super- 
humanly  beautiful  woman,  her  dark  hair 
flowing  upon  her  shining  shoulders,  her  eye 
rapturously  following  the  receding  floods, 
while  at  the  same  time  she  drinks  in  the 
sound  of  an  ^Eolian  harp  that  is  suspended 
at  the  opening  of  the  ravine. 

In  all  this,  what  a  wonderful  fascination, 
what  an  irresistible  passion,  what  a  glow- 
ing, daring,  bewildering  life !  Is  it  a  wonder 
that  Bocklin  touches  the  heart  of  modern 
men?  Is  not  this  the  way  in  which  modern 
men  live — feverishly  working,  feverishly 
enjoying,  crowding  eternities  into  a  brief, 
hasty  moment?  Is  not  this  an  age  of 
giants  and  of  demigods?     And  do  we  not 


Modern  German  Culture        163 

even  in  nature  see  our  own  selves,  do  we 
not  even  from  nature  derive  excitement  and 
intensified  energy  rather  than  edification 
and  calm?  I  believe  that,  in  spite  of  the 
classical  form  of  many  of  his  conceptions, 
there  is,  in  this  respect  at  least,  no  more 
intensely  modern  artist  than  Bocklin. 

Herman  Grimm,  to  whom  we  owe  an  ad- 
mirable analysis  of  Bocklin's  character,  finds 
in  him  a  lack  of  spirituality.  He  notices 
an  underlying  sadness  in  his  work,  and 
thinks  its  effect  disquieting  rather  than  up- 
lifting. That  here  a  real  limitation  of 
Bocklin's  genius  is  touched  upon  is  made 
perfectly  apparent  if  we  compare  his  sen- 
suous and  decidedly  earthy  creations  with 
the  soaring  conceptions  of  a  man  with 
whom  in  artistic  power  he  has  a  good  deal 
in  common :  the  unswerving  idealist  Watts. 
And  yet  I  cannot  help  thinking  that,  if 
Bocklin  lacks  spirituality,  he  certainly  does 
not  lack  the  desire  for  spirituality.   No  man 


164  Glimpses  of 

could  have  created  such  works  as  "  The 
Silence  of  the  Forest,"  or  "  The  Palace  by 
the  Sea,"  or  "  The  Playing  Hermit "  who 
had  not  a  deep-rooted  craving  for  redemp- 
tion from  this  busy  show  world,  who  did 
not  feel  the  awe  of  the  Infinite.  And  does 
there  exist  a  more  perfect  symbol  of  the 
longing  of  modern  humanity  for  transfigu- 
ration and  peace  than  Bocklin's  "  Isle  of 
the  Dead  "  ?  Again  we  are  in  the  middle 
of  the  sea.  Out  of  the  endless  glassy  calm 
there  rises  a  rocky  island.  It  seems  a 
burnt-out  volcano;  on  its  sides  we  see, 
hewn  into  the  rock,  openings  that  remind 
one  of  the  Christian  catacombs.  Waterfalls 
float  like  veils  over  the  surface  of  the  rocks 
and  lose  themselves  gently  in  the  sea.  In 
the  middle  of  the  island  there  is  a  labyrinth 
of  cypresses.  Their  tops  rise  above  the 
surrounding  cliffs  and  are  being  lashed  by  a 
storm  that  sweeps  along  in  the  higher 
regions.      But    in    the    forest    itself    there 


Modern  German  Culture        165 

reigns  absolute  stillness  and  a  mysterious 
dusk.  In  the  foreground,  on  the  water, 
there  drifts  a  boat  towards  the  island — no 
sail,  no  rudder,  no  oarsmen;  a  figure, 
shrouded  in  a  white  garment,  stands  in  it, 
erect,  but  with  bowed  head.  Soon  it  will 
have  reached  its  goal. 


1 66  Glimpses  of 


XII.— HEINRICH  SEIDEL 
August  1898. 

What  a  pleasure  it  is  (and  what  a  rare 
one)  to  meet  a  man  who,  in  the  midst  of 
an  active  and  busy  career,  surrounded  by 
humdrum  cares  and  duties,  struggling 
with  the  stern  realities  of  existence,  has 
still  preserved  all  the  joyfulness,  recep- 
tivity, and  fancifulness  of  his  childhood, 
and  who,  above  the  noise  and  din  of  his 
work-a-day  world,  leads  a  life  of  gay  and 
sunny  visions!  Such  a  man  is  Heinrich 
Seidel.  In  reading  him  we  are  made  to 
forget  that  there  is  a  threatening  social 
question,  that  there  is  an  imperious  pop- 
ular demand  for  sweeping  political  re- 
forms; or  rather,  we  are  made  to  feel  that 
these  social  and  political  reforms  will  be 


Modern  German  Culture         167 

of  no  avail,  if  they  do  not  involve  the  main- 
tenance and  strengthening  of  those  virtues 
of  individual  character  which  are  the  foun- 
dation of  all  society:  faith,  purity,  disci- 
pline, cheerfulness,  loyalty,  love. 

Seidel  is  the  poet  of  the  commonplace, 
more  especially  of  the  commonplace  in 
modern  city  life.  He  has  the  pure  and 
unclouded  eye  which  detects  joy  and  in- 
spiration even  in  the  monotonous  drudg- 
ery of  the  factory  and  the  counting-room, 
and  which  finds  a  reflex  of  the  divine 
even  in  back  alleys  and  tenement  houses. 
He  has  that  reverence  for  the  humble 
and  the  unpretentious  which  makes  him 
discover  worlds  of  feelings,  longings,  and 
aspirations  where  others  would  see  noth- 
ing but  anonymous  philistinism.  He  is 
the  Ludwig  Richter  of  modern  German 
burgherdom. 

To  what  extent  Seidel  even  now,  as  a 
man  of  over  fifty,  is  dominated  by  the  im- 


1 68  Glimpses  of 

pressions  of  his  youth,  we  see  in  his  re- 
cently published  autobiography.  It  is  a 
touching  sight  to  see  this  strong,  martial- 
looking  man,  this  hardy  Mecklenburger 
who  made  his  way  from  his  father's  coun- 
try parsonage  to  a  leading  position  in  the 
engineering  department  of  one  of  the  fore- 
most German  railway  systems,  who  may 
justly  claim  the  honour  of  having  achieved 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  feats  of  mod- 
ern iron  architecture :  the  huge  iron  frame 
roof  that  overarches  the  Anhalter  Bahnhof 
at  Berlin — to  see  such  a  man  revelling  in 
the  simplest  odds  and  ends  of  family  recol- 
lections, and  taking  an  infinite  delight  in 
the  most  harmless  kind  of  friendly  jokes. 

I  select  a  few  scenes  which  will  give  an 
idea  of  the  poetic  charm  that  surrounds 
the  matter-of-fact  experiences  of  this  hon- 
est German  burgher.  Speaking  of  the  fine 
sense  of  justice  which  surprises  us  so  often 
in  children  with  regard  to  the  kind  of  pun- 


Modern  German  Culture        169 

ishment  meted  out  to  their  offences,  Seidel 
recalls  an  occasion  where  the  fact  that  he 
received  less  of  a  retribution  than  he  knew 
he  deserved  tormented  him  more  deeply 
than  any  chastisement  that  had  ever  been 
inflicted  on  him. 

"  I  had  teased  my  little  brother  Werner 
by  bending  a  piece  of  whalebone  back  and 
letting  it  snap  against  his  hand — as  every 
boy  knows,  a  very  painful  device.  He  cried 
for  mother.  She  came,  and  as  a  punish- 
ment simply  struck  me  with  the  slender 
whalebone  a  few  times  on  the  palm  of  my 
hand,  which  of  course  I  hardly  felt.  But 
in  my  heart  I  feel  it  deeply,  and  a  boundless 
admiration  seized  me  for  the  goodness  and 
magnanimity  of  my  mother,  who  thus  mis- 
judged me  in  meliorem  partem.  I  stole  into 
a  corner  and  my  tears  flowed  freely.  Even 
in  after-years  I  could  not  get  over  the  feel- 
ing of  contrition  that  took  hold  of  me, 
whenever  I  thought  of  this  little  incident. 


1 7°  Glimpses  of 

Had  my  mother  punished  me  in  the  same 
painful  way  in  which  I  had  sinned,  we 
should  have  been  quits,  and  never  would 
she  have  appeared  to  me  in  such  an  angelic 
light  as  was  now  the  case." 

The  father  appears  to  have  entered  much 
less  deeply  into  young  Seidel's  life  than 
the  mother.  He  seems  to  have  been  a 
man  entirely  absorbed  in  his  clerical  duties 
and  occasional  poetic  musings,  and  one 
cannot  help  thinking  that  the  son  often 
longed  in  vain  for  closer  intimacy  with  him. 
There  is,  then,  a  peculiar  pathos  in  the  fact 
that  after  his  death  the  thought  of  him 
seems  to  have  been  for  years  so  constantly 
in  Seidel's  mind  that  it  took  the  form  of  an 
ever  and  ever  recurring  dream.  Seidel 
describes  this  dream  in  the  following  man- 
ner: 

"  My  father  had  not  really  been  buried, 
but  in  his  place  a  coffin  laden  with  stones; 
while  he  himself  had  gone  far  away  and  was 


Modern  German  Culture        1 7 1 

now  living  as  a  wanderer  in  distant  moun- 
tains. He  had  regained  his  health,  and 
though  he  looked  very  emaciated,  he  had 
a  brown,  healthy  complexion  and  an  elastic 
step.  The  longing  to  see  his  family  again 
would  from  time  to  time  draw  him  back  to 
us;  but  it  was  a  deep  secret  that  he  was  still 
alive,  and  nobody  was  to  know  it.  After  a 
short  sojourn  with  us,  he  would  wander 
away  again.  Once  I  had  this  dream  again, 
this  time  with  the  variation  that  people 
were  on  his  track  and  we  had  to  conceal 
him.  We  took  him  into  a  large  subter- 
ranean wareroom,  where  one  vault  led  to 
another,  and  sought  for  a  hiding-place 
among  the  innumerable  boxes  and  bales  that 
were  stored  there.  All  the  while  we  heard 
the  talking  and  walking  about  of  the  peo- 
ple who  were  in  search  of  him.  Finally  the 
danger  was  past  and  we  took  him  to  the 
sea  and  bade  him  farewell.  Over  the  sea 
a  wooden  bridge  had  been  built,  which  to- 


172  Glimpses  of 

ward  the  horizon  lost  itself  in  the  distance. 
He  took  his  long  walking  staff,  which  was 
higher  than  himself,  seized  it  about  two- 
thirds  of  its  length,  and  went  out  on  the 
bridge,  putting  down  the  staff  for  support 
at  every  step.  We  stood  on  the  shore 
looking  after  him,  and  he  became  smaller 
and  smaller  and  finally  disappeared  at  a 
little  point  in  the  distance.  Since  then  this 
dream  has  not  come  again." 

Even  if  we  did  not  hear  from  Seidel  him- 
self that  he  is  a  great  admirer  of  Amadeus 
Hoffmann,  the  Romanticist  of  Romanti- 
cists, in  conceptions  like  these — and  there 
are  many  similar  ones — we  should  detect  the 
romantic  element  as  an  important  part  in 
Seidel's  literary  make-up.  Fortunately,  his 
romanticism  has  not  a  trace  of  Hoffmann's 
morbidness;  it  is  inwardly  sound;  it  is  tem- 
pered by  common  sense  and  humour;  and 
the  result  is  that,  far  from  leading  us  into  a 
world    of    incongruous    hallucinations,    it 


Modern  German  Culture         173 

gives  us  an  enlarged  view  of  reality,  be- 
cause it  shows  us  reality  in  the  glamour  of 
an  inner  light  which  has  its  origin  in  re- 
gions inaccessible  to  the  intellect. 

None  of  Seidel's  creations  shows  this 
two-fold  character  of  his  fancy  more  strik- 
ingly than  that  figure  by  which  his  name 
will  probably  longest  be  remembered:  the 
inimitable  Leberecht  Huhnchen  and  his 
circle. 

Here  again  we  observe  the  intimate  con- 
nection between  Seidel's  literary  activity 
and  the  impressions  of  his  own  life;  for  the 
prototype  of  Leberecht  Huhnchen  was  a 
fellow-student  of  Seidel's  at  the  Polytech- 
nikum  of  Hanover  whom  in  his  autobi- 
ography he  characterises  thus: 

"  Being  of  extremely  slender  means,  he 
had  to  peg  along  through  all  sorts  of  hard- 
ships. But  all  the  time  something  like 
sunshine  emanated  from  him,  and  he  knew 
how  to  find  a  serene  side  in  everything.  He 


1 74  Glimpses  of 

could  take  infinite  glee  in  grotesque  con- 
ceptions and  inventions.  Once  I  found 
him  sitting  at  his  window  and  looking  out 
upon  the  square  in  front  with  an  expression 
of  intense  amusement.  I  asked  him  what 
entertained  him  so  much.  '  Oh,'  said  he, 
'  I  am  only  imagining  that  I  could  suddenly 
dart  out  my  nose  way  off  into  the  square 
and  quickly  draw  it  in  again,  so  that  I  could 
tip  with  it  the  people  yonder  on  the  shoul- 
der; and  then,  when  they  looked  round, 
frightened  and  surprised,  nobody  would  be 
there." 

Here  is  the  germ  of  that  harmless,  con- 
tented, moderately  fantastic,  and  withal  so 
thoroughly  sound  and  useful  life  of  which 
the  good  Leberecht  forms  the  centre.  But 
how  this  life  has  expanded  under  Seidel's 
hands,  how  its  meaning  has  deepened ! 

The  very  opening  scene  suggests  the 
charm  of  all  that  is  to  follow.  For  years 
the  poet  has  lost  all  trace  of  his  old  college 


Modern  German  Culture         1 75 

friend,  when  by  accident  he  learns  that  he 
has  obtained  a  subordinate  position  in  one 
of  the  large  Berlin  iron  foundries  and  is 
living-  somewhere  in  the  outlying  districts 
of  the  city.  All  the  dear  old  recollections 
of  their  student  days  are  revived  by  this 
news  in  Seidel's  mind,  and  he  starts  out  at 
once  in  quest  of  the  long-lost  companion. 
Sauntering  about  in  the  quarter  of  the 
town  to  which  he  has  been  directed,  he  sees 
a  little  boy  and  girl  playing  on  the  front 
steps  of  an  apartment  house  and  deriving 
an  immense  amount  of  delight  from  turn- 
ing their  heads  backward  and  letting  it  rain 
into  their  wide-open  mouths.  At  once  the 
thought  crosses  Seidel's  mind :  these  can- 
not but  be  Leberecht  Hiihnchen's  children ! 
He  speaks  to  them,  and  forsooth !  Hiihn- 
chen  is  their  father !  Merrily  they  run  up- 
stairs, three  stories  high,  to  announce  the 
stranger,  and  soon  the  two  friends  have 
clasped  hands  once  more. 


1 76  Glimpses  of 

From  this  scene  to  the  last  ones,  de- 
picting the  joys  and  sorrows  of  Hiihn- 
chen's  old  age,  his  domestic  comfort,  the 
merry-making  and  holiday  pleasures  of  the 
circle  of  friends  that  has  gathered  about 
him,  the  engagement  and  wedding  of  his 
daughter,  the  birth  of  the  first  grandson, 
and  later  on  the  death  of  a  dear  little  grand- 
daughter— what  a  world  of  tender  feeling, 
of  genuine  poetry,  of  deep  religious  faith, 
and  of  sturdy  honesty  there  is  revealed  to 
us!  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  not 
since  Jean  Paul's  "  Quintus  Fixlein  "  has 
there  been  drawn  a  lovelier  picture  of  what 
is  most  charming,  most  wholesome,  and 
most  German  in  German  family  life.  And  I 
doubt  whether  parental  feelings  have  ever 
been  described  more  truthfully  and  more 
poetically  than  in  the  following  account 
of  a  night  spent  by  a  father  at  the  sick-bed 
of  his  little  boy : 

"  The  crisis  of  the  illness  had  come,  and 
when  I  had  just  lain  down  a  little  on  the 


Modern  German  Culture         1 77 

bed  in  my  clothes,  the  boy  began  to  be 
delirious.  Suddenly  he  was  on  his  knees 
and  played  eagerly  with  imaginary  things. 
Something  that  could  not  be  seen  he  would 
put  constantlynow  here, now  there,  and  then 
he  would  quickly  grope  with  the  hand  after 
it,  as  though  it  were  running  away  from 
him.  '  Wolfgang,  what  are  you  doing?  ' 
I  asked.  '  Oh,  I  am  playing  with  my 
store,'  he  said,  '  but  don't  you  see,  it  is  all 
running  away  from  me,  all  the  time,  there 
— there — there.'  '  My  boy,  you  are  dream- 
ing,' I  said,  and  pressed  him  gently  back  on 
his  pillow.  '  Ah,  yes,'  said  he  then  and  lay 
patiently  down  on  his  side.  But  after  a 
while  he  began  again  playing  in  the  same 
manner.  Then  there  seized  me  a  nameless 
fright,  and  I  began  softly  walking  up  and 
down,  up  and  down  through  the  room. 
And  once  as  I  stepped  to  the  window  and 
was  staring  out  into  the  misty  night,  I  saw 
something  or  believed  to  see  something. 
Was  it  a  vision  with  which  my  excited 
12 


1 7&  Glimpses  of 

imagination  deluded  me?  There,  between 
the  bushes  of  the  garden  it  stood,  like  a 
long,  lean,  closely  buttoned  figure,  shad- 
owy but  discernible.  It  was  as  though 
it  were  waiting  for  some  one.  And  now  it 
seemed  as  though  this  shadowy  being  took 
out  a  watch  and  looked  at  it  searchingly, 
and  then  turned  its  dark,  hollow  eyes  to 
the  window  where  I  was  standing.  And 
then  it  nodded  its  head,  as  if  to  say :  '  It  is 
time.'  Then  there  spoke  something  in  me, 
imploringly,  although  I  could  not  bring  a 
sound  to  my  lips :  '  Go,  go !  thou  frightful, 
cruel,  pitiless  one,  go,  go !  and  leave  him  to 
me,  I  beseech  you  from  the  depths  of  my 
soul.  There  are  so  many  who  long  for 
thee,  to  whom  thou  comest  as  a  redeemer, 
as  a  messenger  of  peace.  Turn  thy  steps 
yonder,  and  leave  him  to  me,  leave  my 
child  to  me ! ' 

"And  it  seemed  to  me  as  though  he  was 
hesitating,  the  frightful  shadow.  Did  he 
not    stoop    down   and    pick    a    poor    little 


Modern  German  Culture        179 

flower  that  stood  there  between  some  thin 
stalks,  and  did  not  he  then  vanish  away  in 
the  mist?  From  the  bed  of  my  son  I 
heard  the  sound  of  quiet  breathing,  for  the 
first  time  this  night.  He  was  asleep.  The 
next  morning  the  doctor  came,  and  his 
eyes  shone  when  he  saw  the  child.  '  Thank 
God ! '  he  exclaimed,  '  now  we  are 
through ! '  " 

Although  Heinrich  Seidel  is  not  a  young 
man  any  more  (he  was  born  in  1842),  there 
is  no  sign  of  waning  power  in  his  recent 
writings.  Indeed,  his  latest  volume,  "  The 
Eyes  of  Memory  and  other  Sketches,"  has 
all  the  charm  of  sentiment  and  droll  humour 
that  pervades  his  early  work.  But  even 
if  his  task  were  in  the  main  done  now,  it 
would  have  been  a  task  than  which  no  man 
could  wish  for  a  worthier  one.  For  what 
cannot  be  said  of  very  many  literary  pro- 
ductions of  our  time,  can  be  said  of  his: 
they  have  helped  to  make  men  happier  and 
healthier. 


180  Glimpses  of 


XIII.— PETER  ROSEGGER 
September,  1898. 

Probably  no  territory  inhabited  by  Ger- 
man-speaking people  is  as  crowded  with 
picturesque  sights  and  scenes  as  are  the 
Bavarian  and  Austrian  Highlands.  The 
mountains  themselves  offer  a  wonderful  va- 
riety of  scenery,  from  the  gentle  charm  of 
smiling  lakes  bordered  by  gay  villages,  of 
crystal  streams  flowing  through  luxuriant 
meadows,  to  the  solemn  grandeur  of  Alpine 
wilderness  with  its  primeval  forests,  impas- 
sable chasms,  and  silent  summits.  And  in 
this  land  there  dwells  a  people  worthy  of  its 
soil,  sturdy  and  joyous,  full  of  merriment 
and  song,  clinging  to  old  traditions,  of  na- 
tive beauty  of  speech  and  bearing.  Here, 
centuries  ago,  the  legend  of  the  Nibelungs 
was  welded  into  the  lays  in  which  it  has 


Modern  German  Culture        181 

come  down  to  us.  Here  Walther  von  der 
Vogelweide  learned  the  art  of  chivalric 
song.  Here  was  the  home  of  Haydn  and 
Mozart.  Here  the  Catholic  Church  is  still 
in  living  contact  with  the  people,  and  Pas- 
sion Plays  and  rustic  sculpture  and  painting- 
testify  to  its  ennobling  influence  upon 
popular  art. 

No  living  writer  is  a  truer  representative 
of  this  hardy  people  than  Peter  Rosegger; 
none  could  in  as  full  a  sense  of  the  word  be 
called  a  son  of  the  Alps.  He  was  born 
fifty-five  years  ago  in  an  out-of-the-way 
nook  of  the  Styrian  mountains,  the  pater- 
nal homestead  being  separated  by  miles 
and  miles  of  forest  and  glen  from  the  near- 
est village,  Krieglach  by  name.  His  father 
belonged  to  a  family  of  peasants;  the  grand- 
father on  his  mother's  side  was  a  charcoal- 
burner.  From  early  childhood  the  boy 
shared  in  the  incessant  toil  and  drudgery 
by  which  the  family  eked  out  their  scanty 


1 82  Glimpses  of 

living,  but  he  also  imbibed  that  sense  of 
freedom  and  that  intense  love  of  home  so 
characteristic  of  his  race.  His  earliest  in- 
struction he  received,  in  a  desultory  way, 
from  an  itinerant  schoolmaster  who  on  ac- 
count of  liberal  opinions  had  been  forced 
out  of  office  by  the  village  priest  and  who 
thereupon,  taking  up  the  life  of  a  vagrant, 
dispensed  for  food  and  shelter  the  rudi- 
ments of  wisdom  in  the  lonely  mountain 
settlements.  Since  the  parents  wished  to 
have  the  delicate  boy  study  for  the  clergy, 
they  placed  him  when  about  fifteen  years  of 
age  in  charge  of  a  priest  in  a  neighbouring 
village;  but  the  love  for  his  mountain  home 
was  too  strong  in  him:  after  three  days  he 
ran  away  from  his  tutor,  and  wandered 
back  into  the  ancestral  wilderness. 

Instead  of  the  clerical  profession  the  par- 
ents now  decided  on  another  branch  of 
learning  for  their  son,  to  wit,  the  tailor's 
craft ;  and  it  was  as  a  tailor's  apprentice  that 


Modern  German  Culture        183 

young  Rosegger  made  his  first  study  of  the 
world.  He  himself  has  called  the  five  years 
of  this  apprenticeship  the  college  period  of 
his  literary  career.  Like  his  first  instruc- 
tor in  the  rudiments  of  school  learning,  so 
his  master  in  the  tailoring  trade  also  be- 
longed to  the  itinerant  sort.  He  would 
travel  with  his  journeymen  and  apprentices 
from  farm  to  farm  all  over  their  native 
mountains,  stay  in  each  house  as  long  as 
there  was  work  for  them  to  do,  and  then 
pass  on  to  another,  where  they  would  be 
received  into  the  same  household  intimacy. 
In  this  manner  young  Rosegger  during 
those  five  years  came  into  the  closest  rela- 
tionship with  nearly  seventy  different 
households — an  opportunity  for  character 
study  probably  unparalleled  in  literary  his- 
tory. It  was  during  this  time  that  he  gath- 
ered that  rich  store  of  popular  tradition  and 
wisdom  which  makes  his  works  a  veritable 
mine   of   information    for   the    student    of 


1 84  Glimpses  of 

primitive  folk  life;  and  even  the  imagina- 
tive part  of  his  writings  can  be  traced  in  a 
good  many  instances  to  the  talk  and  the 
incidents  that  formed  the  romance  of  this 
ambulant  tailorshop. 

Some  poems  of  his  in  Styrian  dialect 
which  would  now  and  then  find  their  way 
into  local  newspapers  attracted  the  atten- 
tion of  litterateurs  in  Graz,  the  Styrian 
capital,  and  through  the  efforts  of  these 
men — among  whom  Rosegger  mentions 
with  particular  affection  and  gratitude  Dr. 
Svoboda,  Robert  Hamerling,  and  Rudolf 
Falb — the  young  poet  was  released  from 
the  narrow  bonds  of  handicraft  and  given 
an  opportunity  for  liberal  studies  and 
further  literary  work.  From  here  on  his 
career  was  assured.  From  the  very  first 
his  descriptions  of  Alpine  life  found  a  full 
measure  of  applause  from  those  for  whom 
no  doubt  they  were  in  the  first  place  writ- 
ten— the     Alpine     folk     themselves.     But 


Modern  German  Culture        185 

soon  their  reputation  spread  beyond  the 
range  of  the  Austrian  mountains;  and  at 
present  there  is,  apart  from  the  modern 
realistic  dramatists,  hardly  a  writer  in  all 
Germany  who  commands  such  universal  at- 
tention and  respect  as  this  artless  story- 
teller of  the  wilderness.  He  himself  is  fully 
aware  of  the  limitations  of  his  fancy  and 
his  philosophy  of  life.  With  few  excep- 
tions, he  has  eschewed  subjects  which  lie 
outside  of  "  the  small  great  world  "  which 
he  knows  so  well.  And  although  he  has 
not  infrequently  given  readings  from  his 
works  in  the  great  centres  of  modern  Ger- 
man culture,  from  Vienna  to  Hamburg,  it 
always  drew  him  back  into  his  mountains, 
and  even  now  he  spends  at  least  part  of  the 
year  in  an  Alpine  cottage  near  the  old  peas- 
ant homestead. 

The  two  most  conspicuous  traits  of  Ro- 
segger's  literary  character  are  a  rare  power 
of    grasping    the    picturesque    aspect    of 


1 86  Glimpses  of 

things,  and  a  sublime  simplicity  and  depth 
of  sentiment. 

It  is  indeed  a  mistake  to  think  of  Franz 
Defregger  as  the  foremost  painter  of  Ger- 
man Highland  life.  Who  would  not  be 
grateful  to  the  jovial  master  for  having  in- 
troduced us  into  the  holiday  frolic  of  his 
mountaineers?  Who  would  not  take  de- 
light in  those  superb  lads  and  lasses  of  his 
as  they  dance  in  the  village  inn  or  engage 
in  harmless  raillery  and  merrymaking  at 
the  lonely  Alpine  home?  Who  would  not 
feel  the  thrill  of  genuine  love  of  country 
when  looking  at  such  heroic  scenes  as 
"  The  Last  Muster  "  or  "  Hofer  Going  to 
His  Execution"?  But,  after  all,  how 
limited  Defregger's  sphere  is  in  comparison 
with  the  well-nigh  universal  range  of 
Rosegger's  observation;  how  much  fuller 
and  richer  a  picture  of  life  the  painter  in 
words  unfolds  before  us  than  the  painter 
on  canvas! 


Modern  German  Culture        187 

Rosegger  seems  to  see  with  more  than 
his  own  eyes  and  to  hear  with  more  than 
his  own  ears.  Nothing  seems  to  escape 
him,  and  everything  seems  to  turn  before 
him  into  a  picture.  His  own  youth,  as  he 
narrates  it  in  his  "  Forest  Home,"  appears 
to  us  as  an  almost  endless  chain  of  pictur- 
esque incidents,  the  very  chapter  headings 
often  suggesting  fanciful  or  humourous 
situations :  "  Of  the  great-grandfather  as 
he  sat  on  the  hemlock  tree,"  "  When  I 
presented  the  dear  Lord  God  with  my  Sun- 
day jacket,"  "  Stories  under  the  changing 
moon,"  "  The  Advent  of  the  Holy  Ghost," 
"  When  I  was  a  grist  miller,"  "  When  the 
nights  were  bright,"  "  When  I  was  build- 
ing a  world  in  the  sky,"  "  When  I  went  to 
see  the  Emperor,"  "  When  I  sat  for  the  first 
time  in  a  steam  car."  And  every  one  of 
these  situations  seems  a  world  in  itself,  as 
far  removed  from  the  dusty  prose  of  ordi- 
nary life  as  the  mountain  peaks  themselves 


1 88  Glimpses  of 

are  from  the  smoke  of  the  factories.  But 
Rosegger's  real  subject  is  the  mountain  folk 
in  its  totality,  every  shade  of  its  character, 
every  side  of  its  varied  activities  and  en- 
joyments, its  superstitions  as  well  as  its 
faith,  its  humdrum  toil  no  less  than  its  gay 
eccentricities  and  fierce  passions. 

There  is  the  priest  of  the  outlying  forest 
settlements,  humble  and  devoted,  a  worker 
among  workers,  a  helper  in  distress,  a 
father  of  the  fatherless;  there  is  the  jovial 
village  priest,  both  a  ruler  and  a  friend  of 
his  people,  shrewd  and  good-natured, 
bigoted,  but  full  of  sturdy  wisdom.  There 
is  the  domestic  life  of  the  peasants:  the 
father  given  over  to  the  hard  struggle  for 
existence,  superintending  his  hired  men  al- 
most more  carefully  than  his  family,  con- 
servative, stubborn,  chary  of  words,  but 
easily  inflammable;  the  mother,  undisputed 
ruler  of  the  house,  provident,  sagacious,  in- 
cessantly at  work,  a  tower  of  strength  to 


Modern  German  Culture        189 

her  husband,  an  inexhaustible  source  of 
comfort  and  joy  to  the  children.  There  is 
the  floating  population  of  the  mountains 
with  its  adventurous  and  doubtful  char- 
acters :  the  travelling  traders  and  craftsmen, 
the  woodcutters,  the  military  conscripts, 
the  fiddlers,  the  pilgrims,  the  vagrant  beg- 
gars, the  fortune-tellers,  the  orphans,  the 
village  idiots.  There  are  the  popular  rites 
and  festivals,  half  Catholic  and  half  pagan : 
the  driving  out  of  winter,  the  summer  sols- 
tice fire,  the  charming  of  thunderstorms 
and  eclipses  of  the  moon,  the  Corpus 
Christi  processions,  the  Christmas  and  Pas- 
sion plays.  And  back  of  it  all  there  lies  the 
solemn  world  of  the  Alps  in  its  unapproach- 
able grandeur,  with  its  towering  cliffs  and 
peaks  untrod  by  man,  with  its  ravines  and 
canons,  unillumined  by  the  rays  of  the  sun, 
with  its  torrents  and  its  tornadoes,  its  silent 
lakes  and  its  mighty  avalanches.  Truly, 
one  might  say  of  Rosegger's  descriptions 


190  Glimpses  of 

of  Alpine  life  what  he  himself  has  said  of  his 
people :  a  huge  treasure  of  moral  power  is 
stored  in  them,  an  inexhaustible  reserve  of 
primitive  fancy,  which  cannot  fail  to  be  a 
source  of  rejuvenation  to  the  over-culti- 
vated minds  of  the  present  age,  which  will 
help  to  restore  to  their  rightful  place  de- 
mands which  in  the  feverish  struggle  for  in- 
tellectual progress  so  often  are  lost  sight 
of — the  demands  of  the  human  heart. 

Rosegger  is  by  no  means  indifferent  to 
the  all-absorbing  conflicts  of  the  day.  In 
the  great  questions  of  political  and  religious 
organisation  he  is  altogether  on  the  side  of 
freedom.  Nothing  is  more  foreign  to  him 
than  the  desire  to  stem  the  tide  of  social 
emancipation  which  is  now  forcing  its  way 
even  into  the  Highland  valleys.  He  is  as 
far  from  being  a  fantastic  dreamer  as  from 
being  a  reactionary  fanatic.  He  is  essen- 
tially a  modern  man.  But  his  liberalism 
does  not  keep  him  from  lingering  tenderly 


Modern  German  Culture        191 

and  lovingly  over  the  precious  traditions  of 
the  past;  indeed  he  finds  the  mission  of  his 
life  in  carrying  over  into  the  new  time 
whatever  he  can  rescue  from  the  ruin  of 
the  old.  This  it  is  that  gives  to  his  stories 
that  indescribable  charm  of  gentle  melan- 
choly, of  reverent  veracity,  of  fairy-tale  sin- 
cerity and  uprightness  which  is  so  strik- 
ingly absent  in  most  of  our  modern  realists. 
Is  it  not  as  though  one  heard  the  voice  of 
an  Uhland  or  a  Wilhelm  Grimm  in  such  a 
scene  as  the  following: 

"  Once  my  mother  and  I  went  through 
the  forest  in  the  middle  of  the  night.  The 
little  daughter  of  a  charcoal-burner  had 
died,  and  we  went  to  pray  at  her  bier  and 
to  help  the  parents  keep  watch  over  the 
dead.  We  walked  slowly  over  the  moss, 
the  forest  was  dark.  But  high  above  the 
tree-tops  stood  the  full  moon,  and  where  it 
could  penetrate  through  the  thicket  of 
boughs,  it  scattered  stars  and  milk-white 
dots  before  us  on  the  ground. 


192  Glimpses  of 

"As  we  came  to  a  little  clearing-,  my 
mother  stood  still,  turned  her  face  to  the 
sky,  put  her  hand  over  her  eyes  and  said: 
'  Ah,  there  you  can  see  it  nicely,  the  spin- 
ning wheel  of  our  dear  Lady/  She  meant 
the  moon,  which  was  spinning  its  soft,  deli- 
cate threads  between  the  tree-tops  and 
branches.  Then  my  mother  turned  to  me : 
'  Look  into  the  moon,  boy.  There  sits  our 
dear  Lady  and  spins.  She  is  spinning  a 
heavenly  garment  for  the  dear  little  girl 
that  to-day  lies  on  the  bier.  And  look  a 
little  more.  Your  great-grandmother  sits 
there  too.'  Forsooth,  there  I  saw  it,  yon- 
der in  the  moon  there  sat  two  women  won- 
drous fair  at  the  wheel. 

"  We  went  on,  and  the  moon  went  with 
us  apace,  and  spun  its  heavenly  silk  down 
into  our  wide  forest.  When  we  came 
to  the  hut  where  the  charcoal-burner's 
daughter  lay,  the  door  was  wide  open,  and 
the  moon  was  shining  upon  her  body,  and 


Modern  German  Culture        193 

her  face  was  sweet  and  dear  and  mild,  like 
snow-white  wax.  '  We  are  out  of  oil,'  said 
the  charcoal-burner,  '  and  we  cannot  have 
a  lamp  here;  so  we  opened  the  door,  that 
the  moon  might  be  the  light  for  the  dead.' 
At  once  I  thought  of  our  dear  Lady;  now 
she  was  surely  spinning  the  heavenly  gar- 
ment for  the  little  girl. 

"  We  watched  at  the  body  until  the 
morning-red  began  to  shimmer  upon  the 
tops  of  the  forest,  and  until  the  moon,  pale 
and  almost  lustreless,  sank  down  behind 
the  distant  rocks  of  the  Highlands.  Then 
they  took  up  the  lovely  child  and  carried 
her  away.  And  when  the  moon  rose  once 
more,  it  found  a  fresh  mound  in  the  church- 
yard and  a  little  wooden  cross  upon  it,  and 
it  shed  its  lustre  over  the  grave,  sweet  and 
calm." 

Besides  his  sketches  of  a  more  or  less 
autobiographical  nature  and  besides  his 
character  studies  depicting  popular  life  in 


194  Glimpses  of 

its  various  phases  and  types,  Rosegger  has 
written  several  novels — such  as  Heide- 
peter" s  Gabriel  and  The  God-Seeker — which 
in  an  equally  striking  manner  prove 
his  extraordinary  power  of  creating  what 
the  Germans  call  a  Stimmiingsbild.  But  it 
seems  as  though  his  very  gift  of  transform- 
ing every  sight  into  a  picture  fraught  with 
sentiment  prevented  him  from  attaining  the 
highest  goal  in  blending  this  infinitude  of 
impressions  and  emotions  into  the  architec- 
tural structure  of  a  novel.  One  might  say 
that  he  lives  rather  than  produces  his 
poetry.  It  is  their  lyric  quality  that  will 
make  his  works  endure. 


Modern  German  Culture        195 


XIV.— BISMARCK  AS  A  NATIONAL 
TYPE 

October,  1898. 

It  was  a  spring  day  in  1883.  The  crafts 
and  trades  of  Berlin  were  celebrating  the 
anniversary  of  the  founding  of  one  of  their 
guilds  some  four  or  five  centuries  ago.  In 
good  German  fashion,  there  was  an  abun- 
dance of  solemn  and  sonorous  jollification 
throughout  the  day,  but  the  climax  of  the 
exercises  was  reached  in  an  historical  pa- 
geant representing  the  growth  of  Berlin 
commerce  and  manufactures  from  the 
Middle  Ages  down  to  the  present  time. 

It  had  been  given  out  that  this  pageant 
was  to  be  reviewed  by  the  old  Emperor 
from  his  familiar  corner  window,  and  it  was 
rumoured  that  it  would  also  pass  by  the 
Imperial  Chancellery,  and  that  Prince  Bis- 


i 96  Glimpses  of 

marck  would  probably  be  there  to  see  it 
pass.  In  anticipation  of  this  event,  a  dense 
multitude  had  taken  possession  of  the 
square  in  front  of  Bismarck's  official  resi- 
dence— the  Wilhelmsplatz — hours  before 
the  procession  had  even  begun  to  move. 
An  eager,  nervous  expectation  seemed  to 
hover  over  the  surging  masses.  Will  the 
procession  really  come  this  way?  And  if 
it  does,  will  he  appear — he  who  is  so  in- 
different to  pompous  demonstrations,  so 
averse  to  appeals  to  the  crowd?  As  yet 
there  was  no  sign  of  life  in  the  Bismarck 
mansion :  the  windows  were  closed;  most  of 
the  curtains  were  drawn.  Perhaps  the 
Prince  is  not  even  at  home,  or  is  too  en- 
grossed in  public  business  to  have  given 
any  attention  to  this  local  holiday.  In 
spite  of  such  misgivings,  the  populace  held 
out  unfalteringly;  every  minute  swelled  its 
numbers.  Now,  not  only  the  square,  but 
the   adjoining   streets    also    were    literally 


Modern  German  Culture        197 

packed.  Presently  there  was  heard  from 
the  direction  of  Unter  den  Linden  the  low 
thunder  of  tumultuous  cheering,  inter- 
spersed now  and  then  with  some  distant 
strains  of  martial  music;  evidently  the  pro- 
cession was  passing  the  Emperor's  palace. 
Nearer  and  nearer  the  sounds  came,  and 
higher  and  higher  ran  our  feverish  excite- 
ment. 

Presently  in  a  wing  of  the  Chancellery 
nearest  to  the  Wilhelmstrasse  a  window  was 
thrown  open :  the  Princess  Bismarck  and 
Count  Herbert  leaned  out,  and  far  back  in 
the  darkness  of  the  room  there  loomed  up 
a  shadowy  form,  from  which  a  mighty  head 
seemed  to  be  shining  forth  with  something 
like  electric  energy.  To  describe  the 
frenzy  which  seized  the  thousands  in 
the  street  at  this  sight  would  be  a  futile 
task.  It  was  as  though  we  had  had  a  vis- 
ion, as  though  something  superhuman  had 
suddenly  flashed  down   upon  us  and   ex- 


198  Glimpses  of 

tinguished  every  other  feeling  except  the 
impulse  to  worship.  How  long  we  had 
been  cheering  before  he  came  forward  to 
the  window  I  cannot  tell,  but  I  venture  to 
say  that  even  an  American  football  enthu- 
siast would  have  been  pleased  with  our 
efforts. 

At  last,  however,  he  did  come  forward, 
and,  putting  on  a  pair  of  immense  spec- 
tacles which  his  wife  handed  to  him,  looked 
down  upon  us  with  an  expression  of  grave 
satisfaction.  Meanwhile,  the  procession  of 
the  guilds  had  swung  into  the  Wilhelm- 
strasse,  and  now  passed  by  the  Chancellery 
in  seemingly  endless  array,  every  band 
striking  up  The  Watch  on  the  Rhine  just 
before  it  reached  his  window,  every  banner 
being  dipped  as  long  as  his  eye  was  upon 
it,  and  every  man  straightening  himself  up 
and  feeling  raised  above  his  own  narrow 
self  while  looking  up  to  that  stern  and  awe- 
inspiring  face. 


Modern  German  Culture        199 

What  was  it  that  moved  the  multitude 
so  profoundly  during  those  hours,  that 
gave  to  that  impromptu  demonstration  the 
significance  and  dignity  of  a  national 
event?  Was  it  the  consciousness  of  stand- 
ing in  the  presence  of  the  greatest  diplo- 
mat of  modern  times,  the  maker  and  un- 
maker  of  kings  and  emperors,  the  founder 
of  German  unity,  the  arbiter  of  Europe? 
Undoubtedly  this  was  a  large  part  of  it. 
But  political  achievements  alone  are  not 
sufficient  to  stir  the  people's  heart.  What 
called  forth  this  extraordinary  outburst  of 
enthusiasm,  what  gave  to  every  one  in  that 
crowd  the  sense  of  a  heightened  existence, 
was,  after  all,  the  man,  not  his  work;  it  was 
the  instinctive  feeling  that  in  this  one  man 
yonder  there  were  contained  the  lives  of 
many  millions  of  Germans,  their  dreams 
and  struggles,  their  eccentricities  and 
yearnings,  their  mistakes  and  triumphs, 
their  prejudices,  passions,  ideals,  their  love, 
hate,  humour,  poetry  and  religion. 


200  Glimpses  of 

Let  us  single  out  a  few  of  these  affinities 
between  Bismarck  and  the  German  people, 
in  order  to  understand,  however  imper- 
fectly, why  the  news  of  his  death  that  has 
burst  so  suddenly  upon  us  means  for  the 
sons  of  the  Fatherland  all  over  the  globe 
the  severing  of  their  own  lives  from  what 
they  feel  to  have  been  the  most  complete 
embodiment,  since  Luther,  of  German  na- 
tionality. 


Perhaps  the  most  obviously  Teutonic 
trait  in  Bismarck's  character  is  its  martial 
quality.  It  would  be  preposterous,  of 
course,  to  claim  warlike  distinction  as  a 
prerogative  of  the  German  race.  Russians, 
Frenchmen,  Englishmen,  Americans,  un- 
doubtedly, make  as  good  fighters  as  Ger- 
mans. But  it  is  not  an  exaggeration  to 
say  that  there  is  no  country  in  the  world 
where  the  army  is  as   enlightened   or  as 


Modern  German  Culture        201 

popular  an  institution  as  it  is  in  Germany. 
I  do  not  underrate  the  evils  of  militarism. 
I  believe  the  struggle  against  these  evils 
will  be  the  foremost  task  of  the  next 
twenty-five  years  in  German  political  life. 
But  I  fail  to  see  how  it  can  be  denied  that 
the  introduction  of  universal  military  ser- 
vice, which  we  owe  to  the  inner  regenera- 
tion of  Prussia  after  the  downfall  of  1806, 
has  been  the  very  corner-stone  of  German 
greatness  in  this  century. 

The  German  army  is  not  composed  of 
hirelings,  of  professional  fighters  whose 
business  it  is  to  pick  up  quarrels,  no  mat- 
ter with  whom.  It  is,  in  the  strictest  sense 
of  the  word,  the  people  in  arms.  Among 
its  officers  there  is  a  large  percentage  of 
the  intellectual  elite  of  the  country;  its 
rank  and  file  embrace  every  occupation 
and  every  class  of  society,  from  the  scion 
of  royal  blood  down  to  the  son  of  the 
seamstress.     Although  it  is  based  upon  the 


202  Glimpses  of 

unconditional  acceptance  of  the  monarchi- 
cal creed,  nothing  is  farther  removed  from 
it  than  the  spirit  of  servility.  On  the  con- 
trary, one  of  the  very  first  teachings  which 
are  inculcated  upon  the  German  recruit  is 
that  in  wearing  the  "  king's  coat  "  he  is 
performing  a  public  duty,  and  that  by  per- 
forming this  duty  he  is  honouring  himself. 
Nor  can  it  be  said  that  it  is  the  aim  of  Ger- 
man military  drill  to  reduce  the  soldier  to 
a  mere  machine,  at  will  to  be  set  in  motion 
or  be  brought  to  a  standstill  by  his  supe- 
rior. The  aim  of  this  drill  is  rather  to 
give  each  soldier  increased  self-control, 
mentally  no  less  than  bodily;  to  develop  his 
self-respect;  to  enlarge  his  sense  of  respon- 
sibility, as  well  as  to  teach  him  the  absolute 
necessity  of  the  subordination  of  the  indi- 
vidual to  the  needs  of  the  whole.  The 
German  army,  then,  is  by  no  means  a  life- 
less tool  that  might  be  used  by  an  unscru- 
pulous and  adventurous  despot  to  gratify 


Modern  German  Culture        203 

his  own  whims  or  to  wreak  his  private  ven- 
geance. The  German  army  is,  in  principle 
at  least,  a  national  school  of  manly  virtues, 
of  discipline,  of  comradeship,  of  self-sacri- 
fice, of  promptness  of  action,  of  tenacity  of 
purpose.  Although,  probably,  the  most 
powerful  armament  which  the  world  has 
ever  seen,  it  makes  for  peace  rather  than 
for  war.  Although  called  upon  to  defend 
the  standard  of  the  most  imperious  dynasty 
of  western  Europe,  it  contains  more  of  the 
spirit  of  true  democracy  than  many  a  city 
government  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic. 

All  this  has  to  be  borne  in  mind  if  we 
wish  to  judge  correctly  of  Bismarck's  mili- 
tary propensities.  He  has  never  concealed 
the  fact  that  he  felt  himself  above  all  a  sol- 
dier. One  of  his  earliest  public  utterances 
was  a  defense  of  the  Prussian  army  against 
the  sympathizers  with  the  revolution  of 
1848.  His  first  great  political  achievement 
was  the  carrying  through  of  King  William's 


204  Glimpses  of 

army  reform  in  the  face  of  the  most  stub- 
born and  virulent  opposition  of  a  parlia- 
mentary majority.  Never  did  his  speech  in 
the  German  Diet  rise  to  a  higher  pathos 
than  when  he  was  asserting  the  military 
supremacy  of  the  Emperor,  or  calling  upon 
the  parties  to  forget  their  dissensions  in 
maintaining  the  defensive  strength  of  the 
nation,  or  showering  contempt  upon  liberal 
deputies  who  seemed  to  think  that  ques- 
tions of  national  existence  could  be  solved 
by  effusions  of  academic  oratory.  Over 
and  over,  during  the  last  decade  of  his  offi- 
cial career,  did  he  declare  that  the  only 
thing  which  kept  him  from  throwing  aside 
the  worry  and  vexation  of  governmental 
duties,  and  retiring  to  the  much  coveted 
leisure  of  home  and  hearth,  was  the  oath 
of  vassal  loyalty  constraining  him  to  stand 
at  his  post  until  his  imperial  master  released 
him  of  his  own  accord.  And  at  the  very 
height  of  his  political  triumphs  he  wrote  to 


Modern  German  Culture        205 

his  sovereign :  "  I  have  always  regretted 
that  my  parents  did  not  allow  me  to  testify 
my  attachment  to  the  royal  house,  and  my 
enthusiasm  for  the  greatness  and  glory  of 
the  Fatherland,  in  the  front  rank  of  a  regi- 
ment rather  than  behind  a  writing-desk. 
And  even  now,  after  having  been  raised 
by  your  Majesty  to  the  highest  honors  of  a 
statesman,  I  cannot  altogether  repress  a 
feeling  of  regret  at  not  having  been  simi- 
larly able  to  carve  out  a  career  for  myself 
as  a  soldier.  Perhaps  I  should  have  made 
a  poor  general,  but  if  I  had  been  free  to  fol- 
low the  bent  of  my  own  inclination  I  would 
rather  have  won  battles  for  your  Majesty 
than  diplomatic  campaigns." 

It  seems  clear  to  me  that  both  the  defects 
and  the  greatness  of  Bismarck's  character 
are  intimately  associated  with  these  mili- 
tary leanings  of  his.  He  certainly  was 
overbearing;  he  could  tolerate  no  opposi- 
tion; he  was  revengeful  and  unforgiving; 


206  Glimpses  of 

he  took  pleasure  in  the  appeal  to  violence; 
he  easily  resorted  to  measures  of  repres- 
sion; he  requited  insults  with  counter-in- 
sults; he  had  something  of  that  blind  furor 
Teutonicus  which  was  the  terror  of  the  Ital- 
ian republics  in  the  Middle  Ages.  These 
are  defects  of  temper  which  will  probably 
prevent  his  name  from  ever  shining  with 
that  serene  lustre  of  international  venera- 
tion that  has  surrounded  the  memory  of  a 
Joseph  II.  or  a  Washington  with  a  kind 
of  impersonal  immaculateness.  But  his 
countrymen,  at  least,  have  every  reason  to 
condone  these  defects;  for  they  are  conco- 
mitant results  of  the  military  bent  of  Ger- 
man character,  and  they  are  offset  by  such 
transcendent  military  virtues  that  we  would 
almost  welcome  them  as  bringing  this  co- 
lossal figure  within  the  reach  of  our  own 
frailties  and  shortcomings. 

Three  of  the  military  qualities  that  made 
Bismarck  great  seem  to  me  to  stand  out 


Modern  German  Culture        207 

with  particular  distinctness :  his  readiness 
to  take  the  most  tremendous  responsibili- 
ties, if  he  could  justify  his  action  by  the 
worth  of  the  cause  for  which  he  made  him- 
self  responsible;  his  moderation  after  suc- 
cess was  assured;  his  unflinching  submis- 
sion to  the  dictates  of  monarchical  disci- 
pline. 

Moritz  Busch  has  recorded  an  occur- 
rence, belonging  to  the  autumn  of  1877, 
which  most  impressively  brings  before  us 
the  tragic  grandeur  and  the  portentous 
issues  of  Bismarck's  career.  It  was  twi- 
light at  Varzin,  and  the  Chancellor,  as  was 
his  wont  after  dinner,  was  sitting  by  the 
stove  in  the  large  back  drawing-room. 
After  having  sat  silent  for  a  while,  gazing 
straight  before  him,  and  feeding  the  fire 
now  and  anon  with  fir-cones,  he  suddenly 
began  to  complain  that  his  political  activity 
had  brought  him  but  little  satisfaction  and 
few  friends.     Nobody  loved  him  for  what 


208  Glimpses  of 

he  had  done.  He  had  never  made  anybody 
happy  thereby,  he  said — not  himself,  nor 
his  family,  nor  any  one  else.  Some  of 
those  present  would  not  admit  this,  and 
suggested  "  that  he  had  made  a  great  na- 
tion happy."  "  But,"  he  continued,  "  how 
many  have  I  made  unhappy !  But  for  me 
three  great  wars  would  not  have  been 
fought;  eighty  thousand  men  would  not 
have  perished;  parents,  brothers,  sisters, 
and  wives  would  not  have  been  bereaved 
and  plunged  into  mourning.  .  .  .  That 
matter,  however,  I  have  settled  with  God." 
"  Settled  with  God  "  ! — an  amazing  state- 
ment, a  statement  which  would  seem  the 
height  of  blasphemy,  if  it  were  not  an  ex- 
pression of  noblest  manliness;  if  it  did  not 
reveal  the  soul  of  a  warrior  dauntlessly 
fighting  for  a  great  cause,  risking  for  it  the 
existence  of  a  whole  country  as  well  as  his 
own  happiness,  peace,  and  salvation,  and 
being  ready  to  submit  the  consequences, 


Modern  German  Culture        209 

whatever  they  might  be,  to  the  tribunal  of 
eternity.  To  say  that  a  man  who  is  willing 
to  take  such  responsibilities  as  these  makes 
himself  thereby  an  offender  against  moral- 
ity appears  to  me  tantamount  to  condemn- 
ing the  Alps  as  obstructions  to  bicycling. 
A  people,  at  any  rate,  that  glories  in  the 
achievements  of  Luther  has  no  right  to 
cast  a  slur  upon  the  motives  of  Bismarck. 
Whatever  one  may  think  of  the  worth 
of  the  cause  for  which  Bismarck  battled  all 
his  life — the  unity  and  greatness  of  Ger- 
many— it  is  impossible  not  to  admire  the 
policy  of  moderation  and  self-restraint  pur- 
sued by  him  after  every  one  of  his  most 
decisive  victories.  And  here  again  we  note 
in  him  the  peculiarly  German  military  tem- 
per. German  war-songs  do  not  glorify 
foreign  conquest  and  brilliant  adventure; 
they  glorify  dogged  resistance,  and  bitter 
fight  for  house  and  home,  for  kith  and 
kin.     The  German  army,  composed  as  it 

14 


210  Glimpses  of 

is  of  millions  of  peaceful  citizens,  is  essen- 
tially a  weapon  of  defense.  And  it  can 
truly  be  said  that  Bismarck,  with  all  his 
natural  aggressiveness  and  ferocity,  has  in 
the  main  been  a  defender,  not  a  conqueror. 
He  defended  Prussia  against  the  intol- 
erable arrogance  and  un-German  policy 
of  Austria;  he  defended  Germany  against 
French  interference  in  the  work  of  national 
consolidation;  he  defended  the  principle  of 
state  sovereignty  against  the  encroach- 
ments of  the  Papacy;  he  defended  the  mon- 
archy against  the  republicanism  of  the  Lib- 
erals and  Socialists;  and  his  last  public  act 
was  a  defense  of  ministerial  responsibility 
against  the  new-fangled  absolutism  of  his 
young  imperial  master. 

The  third  predominant  trait  of  Bis- 
marck's character  that  stamps  him  as  a 
soldier — his  unquestioning  obedience  to 
monarchical  discipline — is  so  closely  bound 
up  with  the  peculiarly  German  conceptions 


Modern  German  Culture        2 1 1 

of  the  functions  and  the  purpose  of  the 
state,  that  it  will  be  better  to  approach  this 
part  of  his  nature  from  the  political  instead 
of  the  military  side. 

11. 

In  no  other  of  the  leading  countries  of 
the  world  has  the  laissez  faire  doctrine  had 
as  little  influence  in  political  matters  as  in 
Germany.  Luther,  the  fearless  champion 
of  religious  individualism,  was  in  questions 
of  government  the  most  pronounced  advo- 
cate of  paternalism.  Kant,  the  cool  dis- 
sector of  the  human  intellect,  was  at  the 
same  time  the  most  rigid  upholder  of  cor- 
porate morality.  It  was  Fichte,  the  ecsta- 
tic proclaimer  of  the  glory  of  the  individ- 
ual will,  who  wrote  this  dithyramb  on  the 
necessity  of  the  constant  surrender  of  pri- 
vate interests  to  the  common  welfare : 
"  Nothing  can  live  by  itself  or  for  itself; 
everything   lives    in    the    whole;   and    the 


2 1 2  Glimpses  of 

whole  continually  sacrifices  itself  to  itself 
in  order  to  live  anew.  This  is  the  law  of 
life.  Whatever  has  come  to  the  conscious- 
ness of  existence  must  fall  a  victim  to  the 
progress  of  all  existence.  Only  there  is  a 
difference  whether  you  are  dragged  to  the 
shambles  like  a  beast  with  bandaged  eyes, 
or  whether,  in  full  and  joyous  presentiment 
of  the  life  which  will  spring  forth  from 
your  sacrifice,  you  offer  yourself  freely  on 
the  altar  of  eternity." 

Not  even  Plato  and  Aristotle  went  so  far 
in  the  deification  of  the  state  as  Hegel. 
And  if  Hegel  declared  that  the  real  office 
of  the  state  is  not  to  further  individual  in- 
terests, to  protect  private  property,  but  to 
be  an  embodiment  of  the  organic  unity  of 
public  life;  if  he  saw  the  highest  task  and 
the  real  freedom  of  the  individual  in  mak- 
ing himself  a  part  of  this  organic  unity  of 
public  life,  he  voiced  a  sentiment  which  was 
fully  shared  by  the  leading  classes  of  the 


Modern  German  Culture        2 1 3 

Prussia  of  his  time,  and  which  has  since 
become  a  part  of  the  political  creed  of  the 
Socialist  masses  all  over  Germany. 

Here  we  have  the  moral  background  of 
Bismarck's  internal  policy.  His  monarch- 
ism  rested  not  only  on  his  personal  allegi- 
ance to  the  hereditary  dynasty,  although  no 
mediaeval  knight  could  have  been  more 
steadfast  in  his  loyalty  to  his  liege  lord  than 
Bismarck  was  in  his  unswerving  devotion 
to  the  Hohenzollern  house.  His  monarch- 
ism  rested  above  all  on  the  conviction  that, 
under  the  present  conditions  of  German  po- 
litical life,  no  other  form  of  government 
^ould  insure  equally  well  the  fulfillment  of 
the  moral  obligations  of  the  state. 

He  was  by  no  means  blind  to  the  value 
of  parliamentary  institutions.  More  than 
once  has  he  described  the  English  Consti- 
tution as  the  necessary  outcome  and  the 
fit  expression  of  the  vital  forces  of  English 
society.     More  than  once  has  he  eulogized 


2 1 4  Glimpses  of 

the  sterling  political  qualities  of  English 
landlordism,  its  respect  for  the  law,  its  com- 
mon sense,  its  noble  devotion  to  national 
interests.  More  than  once  has  he  deplored 
the  absence  in  Germany  of  "  the  class  which 
in  England  is  the  main  support  of  the  state 
— the  class  of  wealthy  and  therefore  conser- 
vative gentlemen,  independent  of  material 
interests,  whose  whole  education  is  directed 
with  a  view  to  their  becoming  statesmen, 
and  whose  only  aim  in  life  is  to  take  part 
in  public  affairs";  and  the  absence  of  "a 
Parliament,  like  the  English,  containing 
two  sharply  defined  parties,  whereof  one 
forms  a  sure  and  unswerving  majority 
which  subjects  itself  with  iron  discipline  to 
its  ministerial  leaders.''  We  may  regret  that 
Bismarck  himself  did  not  do  more  to  de- 
velop  parliamentary  discipline;  that  indeed 
he  did  everything  in  his  power  to  arrest  the 
healthy  growth  of  German  party  life.  But 
it  is  at  least  perfectly  clear  that  his  reasons 


Modern  German  Culture        2 1 5 

for  refusing  to  allow  the  German  parties  a 
controlling  influence  in  shaping  the  policy 
of  the  government  were  not  the  result  of 
mere  despotic  caprice,  but  were  founded 
upon  thoroughly  German  traditions,  and 
upon  a  thoroughly  sober,  though  one-sided 
view  of  the  present  state  of  German  public 
affairs. 

To  him  party  government  appeared  as 
much  of  an  impossibility  as  it  had  appeared 
to  Hegel.  The  attempt  to  establish  it 
would  in  his  opinion  have  led  to  nothing 
less  than  chaos.  The  German  parties,  as 
he  viewed  them,  represented,  not  the  state, 
not  the  nation,  but  an  infinite  variety  of 
private  and  class  interests,  the  interests  of 
landholders,  traders,  manufacturers,  labour- 
ers, politicians,  priests,  and  so  on;  each  par- 
ticular set  of  interests  desiring  the  particu- 
lar consideration  of  the  public  treasury,  and 
refusing  the  same  amount  of  consideration 
to  every  other.     It  seemed  highly  desirable 


2 1 6  Glimpses  of 

to  him,  as  it  did  to  Hegel,  that  all  these  in- 
terests should  be  heard ;  that  they  should  be 
represented  in  a  Parliament  based  upon  as 
wide  and  liberal  a  suffrage  as  possible. 
But  to  entrust  any  one  of  these  interests 
with  the  functions  of  government  would, 
in  his  opinion,  have  been  treason  to  the 
state;  it  would  have  been  class  tyranny  of 
the  worst  kind. 

The  logical  outcome  of  all  this  was  his 
conviction  of  the  absolute  necessity,  for 
Germany,  of  a  strong  non-partisan  govern- 
ment :  a  government  which  should  hold  all 
the  conflicting  class  interests  in  check, 
which  should  force  them  into  continual 
compromises  with  each  other;  a  govern- 
ment which  should  be  unrestricted  by  any 
class  prejudices,  pledges,  or  theories, 
which  should  have  no  other  guiding  star 
than  the  welfare  of  the  whole  nation.  And 
the  only  basis  for  such  a  government  he 
found  in  the  Prussian  monarchy,  with  its 


Modern  German  Culture        2 1 7 

glorious  tradition  of  military  discipline,  of 
benevolent  paternalism,  and  of  self-sacrific- 
ing devotion  to  national  greatness;  with  its 
patriotic  gentry,  its  incorruptible  courts, 
its  religious  freedom,  its  enlightened  educa- 
tional system,  its  efficient  and  highly 
trained  civil  service.  To  bow  before  such 
a  monarchy,  to  serve  such  a  state,  was  in- 
deed something  different  from  submitting 
to  the  chance  vote  of  a  parliamentary  ma- 
jority; in  this  bondage  even  a  Bismarck 
could  find  his  highest  freedom. 

For  nearly  forty  years  he  bore  this  bond- 
age; for  twenty-eight  he  stood  in  the  place 
nearest  to  the  monarch  himself;  and  not 
even  his  enemies  have  dared  to  assert  that 
his  political  conduct  was  guided  by  other 
motives  than  the  consideration  of  public 
welfare.  Indeed,  if  there  is  any  phrase  for 
which  he,  the  apparent  cynic,  the  sworn  de- 
spiser  of  phrases,  seems  to  have  had  a  cer- 
tain weakness,  it  is  the  word,  salus  publica. 


218  Glimpses  of 

To  it  he  sacrificed  his  days  and  his  nights; 
for  it  he  more  than  once  risked  his  life,  for 
it  he  incurred  more  hatred  and  slander  than 
perhaps  any  man  of  his  time;  for  it  he  alien- 
ated his  best  friends;  for  it  he  turned  not 
once  or  twice,  but  one  might  almost  say 
habitually,  against  his  own  cherished  preju- 
dices and  convictions.  The  career  of  few 
men  shows  so  many  apparent  inconsisten- 
cies and  contrasts.  One  of  his  earliest 
speeches  in  the  Prussian  Landtag  was  a 
fervent  protest  against  the  introduction  of 
civil  marriage;  yet  the  civil  marriage  clause 
in  the  German  constitution  is  his  work. 
He  was  by  birth  and  tradition  a  believer  in 
the  divine  right  of  kings,  yet  the  King  of 
Hanover  could  tell  something  of  the  man- 
ner in  which  Bismarck  dealt  with  the  di- 
vine right  of  kings  if  it  stood  in  the  way  of 
German  unity.  He  took  pride  in  belong- 
ing to  the  most  feudal  aristocracy  of  west- 
ern Europe,  the  Prussian  Junkerdom;  yet 


Modern  German  Culture        219 

he  has  done  more  to  uproot  feudal  privi- 
leges than  any  other  German  statesman 
since  1848.  He  gloried  in  defying  public 
opinion;  he  was  wont  to  say  that  he  felt 
doubtful  about  himself  whenever  he  met 
with  popular  applause;  yet  he  is  the  founder 
of  the  German  Parliament,  and  he  founded 
it  on  direct  and  universal  suffrage.  He 
was  the  sworn  enemy  of  the  Socialist  party 
— he  attempted  to  destroy  it  root  and 
branch;  yet  through  the  nationalisation  of 
railways  and  the  obligatory  insurance  of 
workmen  he  infused  more  Socialism  into 
German  legislation  than  any  other  states- 
man before  him.  He  began  as  a  quixotic 
champion  of  royal  autocracy;  he  died  the 
advocate  of  the  German  nation  against  the 
capricious  mysticism  of  imperial  omnipo- 
tence. 

Truly,  a  man  who  could  thus  sacrifice  his 
own  wishes  and  instincts  to  the  common 
good;  who  could   so  completely  sink  his 


220  Glimpses  of 

own  personality  in  the  cause  of  the  nation; 
who  with  such  matchless  courage  defended 
this  cause  against  attacks  from  whatever 
quarter — against  court  intrigue  no  less  than 
against  demagogues — such  a  man  had  a 
right  to  stand  above  parties;  and  he  spoke 
the  truth,  when,  some  years  before  leaving 
office,  in  a  moment  of  gloom  and  disap- 
pointment he  wrote  under  his  portrait, 
"  Patriae  inserviendo  consumor." 


in. 

There  is  a  strange,  but  after  all  perfectly 
natural  antithesis  in  German  national  char- 
acter. The  same  people  that  instinctively 
believes  in  political  paternalism,  that  wil- 
lingly submits  to  restrictions  of  personal 
liberty  in  matters  of  state  such  as  no  Eng- 
lishman would  ever  tolerate,  is  more  jealous 
of  its  independence  than  perhaps  any  other 
nation  in  matters  pertaining  to  the  intel- 


Modern  German  Culture        221 

lectual,  social,  and  religious  life  of  the  indi- 
vidual. It  seems  as  if  the  very  pressure 
from  without  had  helped  to  strengthen  and 
enrich  the  life  within. 

Not  only  all  the  great  men  of  German 
thought,  from  Luther  down  to  the  Grimms 
and  the  Humboldts,  have  been  conspicuous 
for  their  freedom  from  artificial  conven- 
tions, and  for  the  originality  and  homeli- 
ness of  their  human  intercourse,  but  even 
the  average  German  official — wedded  as  he 
may  be  to  his  rank  or  his  title,  anxious  as 
he  may  be  to  preserve  an  outward  decorum 
in  exact  keeping  with  the  precise  shade  of 
his  public  status — is  often  the  most  delight- 
fully unconventional,  good-natured,  un- 
sophisticated, and  even  erratic  being  in  the 
world,  as  soon  as  he  has  left  the  cares  of 
his  office  behind  him.  Germany  is  the 
classic  land  of  queer  people.  It  is  the  land 
of  Ouintus  Fixlein,  Onkel  Brasig,  Lebe- 
recht  Huhnchen,  and  the  host  of  Fliegende 


222  Glimpses  of 

Blatter  worthies;  it  is  the  land  of  the  beer- 
garden  and  the  Kaffekranzchen,  of  the 
Christmas-tree  and  the  Whitsuntide  merry- 
making; it  is  the  land  of  country  inns  and  of 
student  pranks.  What  more  need  be  said 
to  bring  before  one's  mind  the  wealth  of 
hearty  joyfulness,  jolly  good-fellowship, 
boisterous  frolic,  sturdy  humour,  simple  di- 
rectness, and  genuinely  democratic  feeling 
that  characterises  social  life  in  Germany. 

And  still  less  reason  is  there  for  dwelling 
on  the  intellectual  and  religious  indepen- 
dence of  German  character.  Absence  of 
constraint  in  scientific  inquiry  and  religious 
conduct  is  indeed  the  very  palladium  of 
German  freedom.  Nowhere  is  higher  edu- 
cation so  entirely  removed  from  class  dis- 
tinction as  in  the  country  where  the  im- 
perial princes  are  sent  to  the  same  school 
with  the  sons  of  tradesmen  and  artisans. 
Nowhere  is  there  so  little  religious  formal- 
ism coupled  with  such  deep  religious  feel- 


Modern  German  Culture        223 

ing  as  in  the  country  where  sermons  are 
preached  to  empty  benches,  while  Tann- 
hauser  and  Lohengrin,  Wallenstein  and  Faust, 
are  listened  to  with  the  hush  of  awe  and 
bated  breath  by  thousands  upon  thousands. 
In  all  these  respects — socially,  intellect- 
ually, religiously — Bismarck  was  the  very 
incarnation  of  German  character.  Al- 
though an  aristocrat  by  birth  and  bearing, 
and  although,  especially  during  the  years  of 
early  manhood,  passionately  given  over  to 
the  aristocratic  habits  of  dueling,  hunting, 
swaggering  and  carousing,  he  was  essen- 
tially a  man  of  the  people.  Nothing  was 
so  utterly  foreign  to  him  as  any  form  of 
libertinism;  even  his  eccentricities  were  of 
the  hardy  homespun  sort.  He  was  abso- 
lutely free  from  social  vanity;  he  detested 
court  festivities;  he  set  no  store  by  orders 
or  decorations;  the  only  two  among  the  in- 
numerable ones  conferred  upon  him  which 
he  is  said  to  have  highly  valued  were  the 


224  Glimpses  of 

Prussian  order  of  the  Iron  Cross,  bestowed 
for  personal  bravery  on  the  battlefield,  and 
the  medal  for  "  rescuing  from  danger " 
which  he  earned  in  1842  for  having  saved 
his  groom  from  drowning  by  plunging  into 
the  water  after  him.  What  he  thought  of 
meaningless  titles  may  be  gathered  from 
his  remark  anent  the  bestowal  upon  him 
by  the  present  Emperor  of  the  ducal  dig- 
nity :  "  If  ever  I  wish  to  travel  incognito,  I 
shall  call  myself  Duke  of  Lauenburg." 

All  his  instincts  were  bound  up  with  the 
soil  from  which  he  had  sprung.  He  pas- 
sionately loved  the  North  German  plain, 
with  its  gloomy  moorlands,  its  purple 
heather,  its  endless  wheatfields,  its  kingly 
forests,  its  gentle  lakes,  and  its  superb 
sweep  of  sky  and  clouds.  Writing  to  his 
friends  when  abroad — he  traveled  very  little 
abroad — he  was  in  the  habit  of  describ- 
ing foreign  scenery  by  comparing  it  to  fa- 
miliar views  and  places  on  his  own  estates. 


Modern  German  Culture        225 

During  sleepless  nights  in  the  Chancellery 
at  Berlin  there  would  often  rise  before  him 
a  sudden  vision  of  Varzin,  his  Pomeranian 
country-seat,  "  perfectly  distinct  in  the 
minutest  particulars,  like  a  great  picture 
with  all  its  colours  fresh — the  green  trees, 
the  sunshine  on  the  stems,  the  blue  sky 
above.  I  saw  every  individual  tree." 
Never  was  he  more  happy  than  when  alone 
with  nature.  "  Saturday,"  he  writes  to  his 
wife  from  Frankfort,  "  I  drove  to  Rudes- 
heim.  There  I  took  a  boat,  rowed  out  on 
the  Rhine,  and  swam  in  the  moonlight, 
with  nothing  but  nose  and  eyes  out  of 
water,  as  far  as  the  Mausethurm  near  Bin- 
gen,  where  the  bad  bishop  came  to  his  end. 
It  gives  one  a  peculiar  dreamy  sensation  to 
float  thus  on  a  quiet  warm  night  in  the 
water,  gently  carried  down  by  the  current, 
looking  above  on  the  heavens  studded  with 
moon  and  stars,  and  on  each  side  the  banks 
and  wooded  hilltops  and  the  battlements  of 

15 


226  Glimpses  of 

the  old  castles  bathed  in  the  moonlight, 
whilst  nothing  falls  on  one's  ear  but  the 
gentle  splashing  of  one's  movements.  I 
should  like  to  swim  like  this  every  even- 
ing." And  what  poet  has  more  deeply  felt 
than  he  that  vague  musical  longing  which 
seizes  one  when  far  away  from  human 
sounds,  by  the  brook-side  or  the  hill-slope? 
"  I  feel  as  if  I  were  looking  out  on  the  mel- 
lowing foliage  of  a  fine  September  day," 
he  writes  again  to  his  wife,  "  health  and 
spirits  good,  but  with  a  soft  touch  of  mel- 
ancholy, a  little  homesickness,  a  longing 
for  deep  woods  and  lakes,  for  a  desert,  for 
yourself  and  the  children,  and  all  this  mixed 
up  with  a  sunset  and  Beethoven." 

His  domestic  affections  were  by  no 
means  limited  to  those  united  to  him  by 
ties  of  blood;  he  cherished  strong  patri- 
archal feelings  for  every  member  of  his 
household,  past  or  present.  He  possessed 
in  a  high  degree  the  German  tenderness  for 


Modern  German  Culture        227 

little  things.  He  never  forgot  a  service 
rendered  to  him,  however  small.  In  the 
midst  of  the  most  engrossing  public  activity 
he  kept  himself  informed  about  the  min- 
utest details  of  the  management  of  his  es- 
tates, so  that  his  wife  could  once  laughingly 
say :  a  turnip  from  his  own  fields  interested 
him  vastly  more  than  all  the  problems  of 
international  politics. 

His  humour,  also,  was  entirely  of  the 
German  stamp.  It  was  boisterous,  rollick- 
ing, aggressive,  unsparing — of  himself  as 
little  as  of  others, — cynic,  immoderate,  but 
never  without  a  touch  of  good-nature.  His 
satire  was  often  crushing,  never  venomous. 
His  wit  was  racy  and  exuberant,  never  equi- 
vocal. Whether  he  describes  his  vis-a-vis 
at  a  hotel  table,  his  Excellency  So-and-So, 
as  "  one  of  those  figures  which  appear  to 
one  when  he  has  the  nightmare — a  fat  frog 
without  legs,  who  opens  his  mouth  as  wide 
as  his  shoulders,  like  a  carpet-bag,  for  each 


228  Glimpses  of 

bit,  so  that  I  am  obliged  to  hold  tight  on 
by  the  table  from  giddiness";  whether  he 
characterises  his  colleagues  at  the  Frank- 
fort Bundestag  as  "  mere  caricatures  of 
periwig  diplomatists,  who  at  once  put  on 
their  official  visage  if  I  merely  beg  of  them 
a  light  to  my  cigar,  and  who  study  their 
words  and  looks  with  Regensburg  care 
when  they  ask  for  the  key  of  the  lavatory  "; 
whether  he  sums  up  his  impression  of  the 
excited,  emotional  manner  in  which  Jules 
Favre  pleaded  with  him  for  the  peace  terms 
in  the  words,  "  He  evidently  took  me  for  a 
public  meeting";  whether  he  declined  to 
look  at  the  statue  erected  to  him  at  Co- 
logne, because  he  "  didn't  care  to  see  him- 
self fossilized  " ;  whether  he  spoke  of  the 
unprecedented  popular  ovations  given  to 
him  at  his  final  departure  from  Berlin  as  a 
"  first-class  funeral  " — there  is  always  the 
same  childlike  directness,  the  same  na'ive 
impulsiveness,  the  same  bantering  earnest- 


Modern  German  Culture        229 

ness,  the  same  sublime  contempt  for  sham 
and  hypocrisy. 

And  what  man  has  been  more  truthful  in 
intellectual  and  religious  matters?  He,  the 
man  of  iron  will,  of  ferocious  temper,  was 
at  the  same  time  the  coolest  reasoner,  the 
most  unbiased  thinker.  He  willingly  sub- 
mitted to  the  judgment  of  experts,  he 
cheerfully  acknowledged  intellectual  talent 
in  others,  he  took  a  pride  in  having  re- 
mained a  learner  all  his  life,  but  he  hated 
arrogant  amateurishness.  He  was  not  a 
church-goer;  he  declined  to  be  drawn  into 
the  circle  of  religious  schemers  and  reac- 
tionary fanatics;  he  would  occasionally 
speak  in  contemptuous  terms  of  "  the  creed 
of  court  chaplains";  but  writing  to  his  wife 
of  that  historic  meeting  with  Napoleon  in 
the  lonely  cottage  near  the  battlefield  of 
Sedan,  he  said :  "  A  powerful  contrast  with 
our  last  meeting  in  the  Tuileries  in  '67. 
Our  conversation  was  a  difficult  thing,  if  I 


230  Glimpses  of 

wanted  to  avoid  touching  on  topics  which 
could  not  but  affect  painfully  the  man 
whom  God's  mighty  hand  had  cast  down." 
And  more  than  once  has  he  given  vent  to 
reflections  like  these :  "  For  him  who  does 
not  believe — as  I  do  from  the  bottom  of 
my  heart — that  death  is  a  transition  from 
one  existence  to  another,  and  that  we  are 
justified  in  holding  out  to  the  worst  of 
criminals  in  his  dying  hour  the  comforting 
assurance,  mors  janua  vita — I  say  that  for 
him  who  does  not  share  that  conviction,  the 
joys  of  this  life  must  possess  so  high  a  value 
that  I  could  almost  envy  him  the  sensations 
they  must  procure  him."  Or  these: 
"  Twenty  years  hence,  or  at  most  thirty,  we 
shall  be  past  the  troubles  of  this  life,  whilst 
our  children  will  have  reached  our  present 
standpoint,  and  will  discover  with  astonish- 
ment that  their  existence  (but  now  so 
brightly  begun)  has  turned  the  corner  and 
is  going  downhill.     Were  that  to  be  the 


Modern  German  Culture        231 

end  of  it  all,  life  would  not  be  worth  the 
trouble  of  dressing  and  undressing  every 
day." 

IV. 

We  have  considered  a  few  traits  of  Bis- 
marck's mental  and  moral  make-up  which 
seem  to  be  closely  allied  with  German  na- 
tional character  and  traditions.  But  after 
all,  the  personality  of  a  man  like  Bismarck 
is  not  exhausted  by  the  qualities  which  he 
has  in  common  with  his  people,  however 
sublimated  these  qualities  may  be  in  him. 
His  innermost  life  belongs  to  himself  alone, 
or  is  shared,  at  most,  by  the  few  men  of 
the  world's  history  who,  like  him,  tower  in 
splendid  solitude  above  the  waste  of  the 
ages.  In  the  Middle  High  German  Alex- 
anderlied  there  is  an  episode  which  most 
impressively  brings  out  the  impelling  mo- 
tive of  such  titanic  lives.  On  one  of  his 
expeditions  Alexander  penetrates  into  the 


232  Glimpses  of 

land  of  Scythian  barbarians.  These  child- 
like people  are  so  contented  with  their 
simple,  primitive  existence  that  they  be- 
seech Alexander  to  give  them  immortality. 
He  answers  that  this  is  not  in  his  power. 
Surprised,  they  ask  why,  then,  if  he  is  only 
a  mortal,  he  is  making  such  a  stir  in  the 
world.  Thereupon  he  answers :  "  The  Su- 
preme Power  has  ordained  us  to  carry  out 
what  is  in  us.  The  sea  is  given  over  to  the 
whirlwind  to  plough  it  up.  As  long  as  life 
lasts  and  I  am  master  of  my  senses,  I  must 
bring  forth  what  is  in  me.  What  would 
life  be  if  all  men  in  the  world  were  like 
you? "  These  words  might  have  been 
spoken  by  Bismarck.  Every  word,  every 
act  of  his  public  career,  gives  us  the  im- 
pression of  a  man  irresistibly  driven  on  by 
some  overwhelming,  mysterious  power. 
He  was  not  an  ambitious  schemer,  like 
Beaconsfield  or  Napoleon;  he  was  not  a 
moral  enthusiast  like  Gladstone  or  Cavour. 


Modern  German  Culture 


If  he  had  consulted  his  private  tastes  and 
inclinations,  he  would  never  have  wielded 
the  destinies  of  an  empire.  Indeed,  he 
often  rebelled  against  his  task;  again  and 
again  he  tried  to  shake  it  off;  and  the  only 
thing  which  again  and  again  brought  him 
back  to  it  was  the  feeling,  "  I  must;  I  can- 
not do  otherwise."  If  ever  there  was  a 
man  in  whom  Fate  revealed  its  moral  sov- 
ereignty, that  man  was  Bismarck. 

Whither  has  he  gone  now?  Has  he 
joined  his  compeers?  Is  he  conversing  in 
ethereal  regions  with  Alexander,  Caesar, 
Frederick?  Is  he  sweeping  over  land  and 
sea  in  the  whirlwind  and  the  thunder-cloud? 
Or  may  we  hope  that  he  is  still  working 
out  the  task  which,  in  spite  of  all  the  im- 
periousness  of  his  nature,  was  the  essence 
of  his  earthly  life — the  task  of  making  the 
Germans  a  nation  of  true  freemen? 


16 


DC 

61    Francke  - 

F81;g   Glimpses  of 

modern  German 


;  book  is  DUE  on  thi 
^ote  stamped  bel 


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